Just a dash of lunacy

So, I pinched a nerve in my neck last Tuesday and there are still surges of pain if I turn my head too much to either side. This has happened before, many times in fact. I can't remember the last year that has went by without screwing up my neck at least once. There was something different about it this time though. When it happened, at the most inopportune timer...as always, I hear a sound I had never heard before and never hope to again. It was as if someone had taken a piece of celery and broke it in half, only much more disturbing. The phone rang, I reached for it and , BAM!, that's when it happened. Yeah, the mystery caller on the other end who I nearly crippled myself to speak with? A guy from work, asking me to come in later that day (which I did, cause I'm an idiot).
I called my doctor's office and set up an appointment for later in the afternoon. The nurse assured me he would help me out that very day. He came in, poked around a bit while asking if it hurt, said it would clear up in a few days and charged me $90. It was kinda like "Hi. Bye. Thanks for your paycheck."

I've started writing again. Scratch that. I've tried to start writing again. I was doing good for about two weeks, turning out a page a day at least, then I hit a patch of writers block and have yet to recover. There are days when I get a sentence in, maybe a whole paragraph if I'm lucky, but most of the time I don't even touch pen to paper anymore. I have ideas kicking around in my head, but whenever I try to materialize them in words...they either fall apart or sound completely absurd (and not in a good way).

-Wendy decided to drop the $3,500 buyout charge for her signature. As it turns out, she would have to have the divorce paperwork renegotiated for that to happen and she just can't afford that. Yay!
-Unless my dad or I decide to back out (no chance of that really), the refinance process will be finalized and done with by Monday. So, for all intents and purposes, I will officially be a homeowner at 24.
-I was recently promoted to full-time at the Valley Hospital. I work three twelve hour shifts now (Friday-Sunday...goodbye weekend). Unfortunately we are short staffed, so I usually get some extra hours Monday-Thursday as well. Overtime is great for the paycheck at least.
-Speaking of paychecks: I'm getting myself out of debt, slowly but surely.
-Kris and I were able to catch The Incredible Hulk (which was pretty entertaining considering I know nothing of the comic history) and The Strangers (I yawned no less than three times and wanted to rip my hair out due to the sheer predictability of the entire mess).
-Worked out for the first time in a month yesterday. I got four miles in an hour on the treadmill and lifted some weights. Of course, I couldn't move this morning.
-I had strep throat a few weeks ago. That was my first (and hopefully last) encounter with that. Ended up costing me four days of work, a visit to the doc and some meds.
-Oh, shit, there's a bear. Would you hand me that shotgun, buddy? Also, that chair.
-Missed Theresa like crazy everyday, with today being no exception.

~fin

So I’m updating my LJ again. Lord knows why. Call it boredom, call it a promise, call it...taking a turn (wink, wink).
Talking about the happenings of my life seems so alien to me now. Not because I have nothing to talk about, but because I’m not used to telling it to anyone aside from Theresa (and, truth be told, I could do a whole lot better at that than I usually do. Sometimes my communication skills suck, sorry dear).
I guess I should just take it one step at a time though, huh? Don’t want to be shoving everything down your throats all at once.

As some of you may know, a little over three years ago, my father remarried. They made each other happy, they bought a house together, they made plans for the future...all that stuff.
Well, things didn’t go so well and, skipping passed the who, what, when and why, I can tell you that the divorce is nearly finalized. She is so deep in debt that she can barely keep her head above all the shit she’s gotten herself into...so she can’t pay the monthly mortgage and a few financial offices laughed at her when she asked if she could refinance by herself (that’s good). So, now my dad owns a house and he is just able to make all the bills and payments go away with what he makes...if I help (that’s sorta good…if you don’t mind being broke all the time).
When refinance time came along, we decided to add my name to the paperwork because my credit score is 720+ and we hoped it would lower the payments significantly in the process (plus I’d be a homeowner). This is where the “Better communication with Theresa” idea could really have come into play more, cause I’m a jackass and told her next to nothing about it until I had already signed my name in blood. One final step we need is for Wendy to sign a quitclaim deed so we can be done with her for good.
Now remember that she is badly in debt, even after my dad took out a $6,500 loan for her (that’s bad, even though they were still happily married) which she refuses to see as her responsibility to pay back in any way, shape or form. Oh, and when she left, she decided that everything they bought together was hers and took it (about another $5,000, she even took the damn Tang). It really shouldn’t have come as any surprise when she demanded $5,000 to be “bought out” for her quitclaim signature...but it did. She also threw in nice little quotes like “Well, I’m not happy for you” (in regards to the refinance going well), “You (my dad) just used me to get a house” and “I hope this fails for you” (again, in regards to the refinance, after making her payoff demand).
We’re sorta steering this boat in the fog right now. We have to give in to Wendy (no choice really), but we’re not even sure if the refinance is gonna go through now because she keeps fucking us up.

Anyway, that’s just one part of my circle of life. There’s plenty more to share, I just hope I haven’t bored you too much with this.

I just finished taking a patient to X-Ray and, on the way there, I noticed that he had a few interesting tattoos. The first one I noticed quite by accident because his gown was untied (thankfully he was wearing underwear). For reasons that were unknown to me, this man had the word "VAGINA" tattooed on the upper right portion of his back in big, bold letters. I had to fight off the temptation to ask him about it several times because I just kept going back to thinking that some things are better left questioned and not answered.
When we got on the elevator he turned his head to look at me and I noticed what appeared to be a smudge of dirt in the middle of his forehead. Upon a second glance I found that this was another tattoo, about the size of a button. From what he told me of this tat, I just had to ask about that one, it was supposed to be an Indian gang marking of a bear claw. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it looked more like a kitten paw.

I was alerted that there was a patient in the ER who had apparently lodged a toothpick into their nasal cavity through the roof of their mouth. How they did this I do not know exactly and don't really care to. My first thought was that it was a child who was fooling around and ended up paying for it in the end. When I went to take the patient to get a CT, however, I was shocked and amazed to find that it was a man well into his forties who jabbed a toothpick into his head.

There are a few things I could talk about, but I can't seem to string even a simple sentence together in my head to get anything out. It's hard being here while she is there, not knowing when we'll be together again exactly.

I'm not sure exactly, but I think I am working with a few people who are going to end up annoying me more and more every day.
One guy hates homosexuals and Democrats, loves to have a house full of guns and shoot anything that moves simply because it was moving (I couldn't care less of the sexual preference of others, consider myself more of a Democrat than a Republican...but really dislike politics in the end, and generally don't have respect for people who simply hunt for the thrill of the kill).
There is another guy who has no problem with throwing out his racial dislikes, regardless of if others object. I remember him asking me if I spoke Spanish (most people assume I am of some Hispanic descent) and when I said "No", he replied with "Good, Spanish is a stupid language anyway. Kids shouldn't be learning it". Just recently he talked of how, in his words exactly, "Black people can't watch movies in a theater because they can't be quiet, and I can't seem to get away from them in L.A. or here. There was a black guy a few rows in front of me last night who wouldn't shut up"

All I ever seem to do is complain when I update my journal, but fuck....I guess it's better than nothing.

Okay, so things have been hectic...hectic and depressing for the most part.

Skipping through things as fast as possible, I will try to bring things to date.

-Jumping through hoops I was able to make it into spokane only 12 hours later than I was supposed to. Being stuck in LA for the night was not fun.
-The day after arriving back in Spokane, I started my new job. Worked an hour of overtime on the first day.
-I was thrown into a 12 hour shift on day two. I'm thankful that I already knew what I was doing and only had to learn the layout of the hospital or the second day might have driven me crazy.
-Picked up the stomach flu during day two of work and was in bed the entire weekend.
-Missed Theresa every minute of every day. Never felt like I got to talk with her enough.
-First actual week of work flew by, no real complaints.
-Picked up my small paycheck (21 hours total on it), put it in my bank account and spent it all on bills.
-Went to see Semi-Pro with Kris. Was amazed by how much more expensive the theater prices are now than when I left.
-Back to work on Monday, where I found out the my schedule was changed...to a grotesque thing that I hate even thinking about.
-Today: Not hating work yet...but it is only Tuesday.

Dear lord. It has been so long since I made an update it isn't funny. How many of my fellow LJ friends are still around? Not many I would assume. Writing an update seems weird, mainly because it has been so long since I've written anything anywhere that I have to teach myself how to make something interesting all over again. SOmething tells me that's not gonna happen with this post. WHen was the last entry made? Late 2005? That's a crapload of catching up to do...I don't think I can even attempt it.
The here and now is that I am currently in Nova Scotia (yes, Canada), living with Theresa (blatherskite_). I couldn't imagine having anyone else in my life, I truly couldn't. Sadly, I have run out of the money I had saved from my job at Deaconess (Okay, truth be told, I ran out of that long ago) and now I have to move back to Spokane to either reclaim my transport position at the hospital, or find another place to be gainfully employed. Buying the airplane ticket was hard as hell, I almost couldn't do it...but I knew I had to. I had back into the States...into Spokane...on the 4th of March. That time is creeping up too fast. As hard as it was to buy the ticket, I can't even imagine what it is going to be like to be that far away from her again.

I think that's a good start for now, don't want to write on and on about everything and have nothing for later.

You're Beautiful

It is a bit hard to believe that I haven’t truly updated my journal since June. I’ll try to give a quick, simple rundown of things since then.

-Quite my job at the airport after working there and at the hospital for three months.
-Got promoted to FULLTIME at the hospital.
-Someone hit my car.
-Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children stomped all over my low expectations and astonished me.
-The soundtrack is amazing as well, but I was expecting that.
-Saved up a lot of money.
-Watched a lot of horrible movies.
-Other things…happened, but…ARGH…can’t think clearly…

…and that sums that up…

After (nearly) a month of silence I finally remember my neglected Live Journal. To summarize what has been going on in my life for those with a short attention span: I've been working. That's it.

Now, for those who wish to read a bit more, I can delve into detail here and there.

At the airport:
Truth be told, nothing too exciting ever happens at the airport. No exploding planes, no stowaways found hiding in the bellies, nothing. Well, I guess the fact that my right foot was nearly broke is a bit exciting.

We were moving containers off of the top deck and the rollers were not working with us at all. A can got stuck halfway down the line and we all had to help to get it to start moving again. Once it did start moving, no one wanted it to stop...except me. My boot became stuck between the lock and the can the instant it started moving. I tried to pull it free, but it was caught in there pretty well, and the fact that four other people kept pulling and pushing on the canister didn't help any. In the end, my foot ended up being squashed pretty badly. My first fear was that it was broke, but after I found that there wasn't excruciating amounts of pain when I walked on it I breathed a sigh of relief and ignored the whole ordeal. My foot remained sore for a few days after the event, but now it is as good as new.

At the hospital:
There are so many interesting stories that come with this job every day and I only wish I could remember all of them.

I do remember a particular case from about a week ago though. I was transporting a woman from ER to X-ray. She was in the trauma room of the ER and I knew that meant that whatever was wrong with her, it was serious and urgent. Upon arriving there though, I was a bit confused. All I saw was a rather large woman laying on a stretcher with a neck-brace on. She was conscious, coherent and in very little pain. Normally, when people are in the trauma room, they are pretty bad off. This woman seemed to be an exception though.

As I was taking her up to x-ray, her husband/boyfriend/whatever was babbling on and on about what happened. Apparently the woman was driving a motorcycle and somehow ended up driving straight into their house. She went through three walls and a wine cabinet. After he explained the accident, he laughed and said "I wish I had recorded that with the camcorder, I would've won the $10,000 America's Funniest Home Videos prize for sure!"

"Yeah, well you'll probably need a lot more than that for all the exams, tests and procedures she's gonna have to go through. Not to mention house repairs." The guy's jaw dropped and the woman simply smiled. He was quiet for the rest of the trip.

I probably should have just kept my mouth shut and not said a word, but his arrogance pissed me off.

So, work has been fine. Going to bed at 8 pm and getting up at 3 am is slowly starting to get to me though. Mainly because I don't fall asleep until 9 or so. It is still a solid 6 hours, but that really isn't enough when you keep falling behind anyway.

Working at the airport is, well, working at the airport. Working at the hospital, on the other hand, leaves me with a story to tell every day. It is fairly interesting work.

I'm trying to get into the habit of updating this more, but I have even less time on my hands than in the past so it'll be a work in progress.

If anything has become apparent to me over the past weekend, it is that I need to hang out with/meet more people in Spokane.

That had to be one of the slowest weekends to ever pass....

This week was a hectic one, that's for sure. Monday was the only day of rest I really had.

On Tuesday, I had to head over to the hospital after the morning shift at the airport to fill out my paperwork. While I was there, I also had my TB and Hepatitis B shots and had a vial of blood drawn as well. After all that fun stuff, it was back to the airport for the afternoon shift.

Wednesday was more fun, because my supervisor at the hospital wanted me to come in to start training early (I haven't been to orientation yet, that's next week). So, after the morning shift at the airport it was back to the hospital again. I could only stay for about 5 hours (Well, it could have been 6, but they would have had to given me a lunch break after that so we decided not to even deal with that), but that was more than enough time to feel overwhelmed.
The hospital is huge, and it is going to take me a while to learn where everything is. Everyone tells me it'll take about a month to memorize, but I think it might take me a bit longer. I made it an 11 hour day when I drove back to the airport.

Thursday was pretty much the same, only less overwhelming. I was starting to get things down, slowly but surely.

Friday was, well, not a TGIF day...that's for sure. I dealt with my first stiffy. Well, you know, a corpse. Dealing with the body wasn't too much of a problem, though it'll take a while to remember everything that needs to be done. The problem came in the form of moving the body to the morgue. Another new guy (who's name I can't remember) and I were called to meet Jeff on the 4th floor. Now, since Jeff has been working as a transport tech for a few years, one would think he would know what he was doing. One would be wrong in that assumption though. Jeff told us to go down the hall and meet him at the elevators. What we didn't know was that Jeff actually should have made us wait until the halls were cleared and told us to take a left as opposed to a right. We didn't have a clue though, so we moved the body down the hall and right past a room with a grieving family (I don't know if the family was grieving over the person we were moving, but it still didn't help).
Once we made it to the elevators Jeff fucked us over again. He was supposed to call down to ER and get a locked elevator before we even began moving the body, but that somehow slipped his mind. We were lucky to have made it to the basement without anyone else getting on the elevator, I'm sure that would have been a sight to see.

Later in the day, I had to move another body to the morgue. This time another guy accompanied me who actually knew what he was doing. Things went a lot smoother that time, to say the least.

After my hospital shift ended, I forgot to go to the airport. My first no call, no show...oh well.

Well, in truth, there really was much of a decision to make in the first place. I could have chosen to stay where I was at, with no chance of going anywhere with that job, or taken a risk and left it all behind for a job where I could actually get my foot in the door in a big industry.

The benefits, the room for advancement, the money (damn it would be nice to not feel like I'm sinking every month)...it's all there in this new job opportunity whereas Spokane Airways can offer me nothing like that. So, in the end, I decided to take the patient transport job at Deaconess Medical Center.

I go in next Tuesday to fill out my paperwork, and I put my two weeks in at Spokane Airways last Thursday.

Things switch up pretty quickly in life, regardless of the fact that you think you're standing still.

On Monday I received two calls from two different people at Deaconess Medical Center. One was a doctor who I had met at a job interview a few weeks prior and the other was a lady from human resources who I had never met. Neither knew the other one was calling, but they both had the same agenda. Imagine my surprise and delight when I return home to hear two people beseech me to reconsider taking a position at the hospital.

The job in question is a patient transporter. Basically I would be wheeling patients to their rooms after surgery, various exam rooms, the morgue (for obvious reasons), etc...
The pay is good, beating my current job by nearly $2 with extras added on during evenings, nights and weekends. I would finally have benefits, which have been a necessity for quite some time. This would get my foot in the door in a major institution where there is tons of room for advancement.

There are a few downfalls though, as with every job. I am only guaranteed 40 hours every pay period. That meaning only 20 hours per week, but I was told to expect to get more than that regularly.
It's an on-call position, so I have to be ready whenever they want me.
Since it is an on-call position, I would have to give up my job at Spokane Airways completely. 8 months and a raise waved away.

Overall, the pros outweigh the cons and this is one instance in which I really can't refuse. It is too good of an offer to pass up. I'm just waiting for a few final details on the job before I notify Carlo and put in my two weeks notice.

I hate leaving Spokane Airways, mainly because of all the people I know and work with there. Out of all the people I've met there, I've really only disliked about two or three. I know that I can get some phone numbers before I leave and keep in touch with those who I really enjoyed being in the company of, but something tells me it'll be like the end of high school: You go your separate ways and slowly most of the friendships you made dissolve. Oh well, one must move on.

Life isn't worth living if you go through it without taking risks.

Let's backtrack a bit here: On the 5th of March, my father remarried to Wendy, a wonderful woman he met a little over a year ago. I was asked to be the best man. It's my father, so of course I couldn't refuse.

Now, I hadn't been to many weddings and at all of those I had been to previously I was merely been a guest. I never really paid attention to the best man or what he had to do. So besides knowing that I had to dress up like a handsome devil and hand over the rings, I had no clue of what else there was to do. In truth, there really wasn't that much more to it besides smiling for thousands of pictures, walking the maiden of honor down the aisle and...oh yeah, delivering the main toast.

No one told me that it was my responsibility to present a toast until the morning of the wedding. I laughed nervously and frantically started racking my brain to try and come up with something charming and fitting. It seemed to take forever, but I finally thought of enough to fill up 30-45 seconds.

We snazzy ourselves up and head for the church. Upon arrival, I realize that my right front tire is losing air. "Oh well, no big deal. I'll get it fixed tomorrow" I thought to myself and continued on to become blinded by the endless flash of cameras. The wedding came off without a hitch (Well, except Wendy and my dad...those two still got hitched of course) and, after countless post-ceremony pictures, it was time to head to the reception. There was just one problem though, my tire had went from a little flat to all the way flat.

I throw my hands up, wondering why the hell I wrote a toast if I'm not even gonna be able to read it at the reception I was apparently not going to make it to. Luckily, a couple of the other wedding goers stayed behind to help me change out the flat with a donut. They warned me to be careful when driving because the tire would generally try to pull the car towards the curb. I thanked them and drove off, leading a car full of relatives behind me, as they wanted to make sure I made it to the reception without any problems.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I was just glad to have the tire problem taken care of. As I was driving I began to get nervous about the toast. Public speaking has always made me nervous, and even family was no exception. "What if I keep screwing up while I'm reading it? What if no one laughs when I try to be funny and there's just that awkward silence? What if--"

YELLOW LIGHT.

My first instinct was to just run the light, as I could make it with ease, but I also didn't want to lose the family behind me. I jammed my foot onto the brake pedal, not hard, but with more force than usual. Until that instant, I had completely forgotten about the donut replacing the regular tire on the right side of my car. I was quickly reminded it was there by the loud squealing sound it made as my car came to a stop followed by the smoke that began to rise from the side of my car.

According to Fred and Cheryl (the two family members who were following me) I left a nice streak of burn that trailed about 6 feet behind me. After that I drove very carefully and kept my focus on only the road and traffic lights. After a half-hour of white-knuckle driving we finally made it to the reception. An hour after that, I gave my toast and it was very-well received. I was fairly nervous, but nothing that was at all noticeable.

The most stressful part of that day came in the form of something that wasn't even expected...a flat tire.

It seems that if there is just one single thing I'm good at, it is disappearing for long amounts of time. Not that its anything to gloat about though, as it is more a bad habit than anything else really. Regardless of all that though, I’m attempting to fall back into place here. We’ll just see how long it lasts this time around.

I’ve been able to keep up with a few of you, but as for the vast majority of people on my friends list…I’ve lost track completely. I imagine I’ll be able to catch up sooner than later though.

Regular updates will be attempted, but as you might have guessed, no promises can be made.

Remember that crappy full-time manufacturing job I was talking about in my last post? Yes, well, I quite that job when March began. I hadn't even worked there two weeks and I already put in my two weeks notice. Technically, I should still be working there until the 15th, but I'm not going in anymore. Once they found out I was quitting, they started treating me more and more like shit stuck to the bottom of their shoe. That was one of the key reason's why I quite, they have no respect for their employees and the place is pretty much a revolving door.

The fact that I was sick every single day after my third day working there didn't help matters much either. I thought that perhaps I had just caught a bug or something, but that theory didn't hold up too well when I started to feel better after work was over, and fully recover during the weekends only to fall victim to it again once Monday rolled around. There was definitely something there that I was allergic to, I just don't know what. Maybe it was all the dust being kicked up by the machines in an enclosed space.

Anyway, the place was called Pasta, USA. Hell, I even included a link so maybe you might see some of the products in a store and say "Wow, I bet Justin packaged that! Maybe I should pick some up...nah, nevermind. He probably sneezed all over it"

Needless to say, I'm on the search once again. At least I still have my job at the airport though.

Hello everyone! I'm finally finding time to update my journal again after a much extended leave. Things have just been hectic and rushed over the past five or six weeks. Searching for a full-time job while still working both shifts at the airport, dealing with my mother who is going through yet another lupus flare up (they are, as we feared, starting up more frequently with less time in between), preparing for my father's wedding, gaining a full-time job and trying to keep everything straightened out.

It didn't take as long to get a full-time job as I expected it would. Then again, it is always easier to search for a job when you already have one, it just makes everything less stressful. It was a bad decision on my part to jump at the first full-time job offer to come up though. My new job deals in manufacturing and, suffice to say, things are not looking too bright there. I'm catching on slower than my supervisor would like (regardless of the fact that I've been there less then a week, he expects me to be on the same level of people who have been there for years) and there is a high possibility that I'm allergic to something in the atmosphere there, as I became pretty sick on my third day there.

I wish I had more time to write more about what has been going on, but I have to go to work now. I'll try to get in another update after I come home tonight.