::plays Taps::

I start a new job in about three weeks.

My feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I’m glad to have something in place for when my current job “expires”. On the other, I don’t want the current one to expire at all. And yes, I know I bitch about it sometimes, but it’s work. Everybody bitches about work. Even people who really, truly love what they do for a living. It’s just that there’s significantly less to bitch about with my current job than there was with the last one (thank GOD) and I have never taken that fact for granted. It’s comfortable. I’m comfortable. But, alas, these halcyon days are fast disappearing, and all of us have to alight because it’s the end of the line.

The new gig is effectively the same as the current one, just for a different payroll service bureau. One of the bonuses of this is that it’s the service bureau my biggest client group has chosen to replace my current company, which means I’ll already have a handful of clients whose nuances I’m familiar with. They were the ones who got me in touch with the new company to start with. I’m really very grateful for that. 

It’s difficult, though, to get properly excited about something that you didn’t want to have to deal with in the first place. (And doesn’t that sentence just apply to SO many things…) I know that a lot of this malaise can be chalked up to the fact that I’m already so off-kilter from all of the nonsense this year has already flung violently in my direction. It really has been one thing after another recently. My major source of joy (not to mention quality social interaction) has been significantly curtailed what with that whole pinched nerve situation, which leaves me with far less of an outlet for the things that are eating at me—especially since the outlet has suddenly become yet another of the things that’s eating at me…at least to an extent.

 

I'd be grateful for a break, you know? Luckily I have a couple of one-weekers coming up on the calendar, which my new gig graciously honored. Of course, both of them are with my parents, but one can't win at everything, I suppose. It's actually a bit awkward, scheduling-wise, as I start the new job, have a week off, work a week, then have another week off, but oh well. I intend to make the most of my mostly-vacations-except-for-the-parents-bits. 

 

Providing, of course, that I have the energy to do more than stare into the middle-distance. 

How’s the weather?

Let’s talk about temperatures. 

It’s mid-July. If you live in the northern hemisphere, that means that it’s summer. Summer means that it’s hot. Hot...well. Hot can mean a lot of things. Hot and humid. Hot and dry. Hot for the location. Hot for the time of year. Hot for one person can be perfectly temperate for another. 

I grew up in Gilroy, California. We regularly got into triple digits in the summers. If the marine layer didn’t make it over the Santa Cruz mountains at night, we were very toasty indeed the next day. And if it didn’t make it over the mountains for multiple days in a row, we roasted. Ours was a dry heat. To me, dry triple digit days aren’t anything out of the ordinary. Are they comfortable? No. But do I go around bemoaning them? No. Because I’m used to that version of hot.

The east coast of the U.S. has this thing called humidity. Their hot is a wet hot. It’s awful, and I hate it. I spent six weeks at a ballet summer school in upstate New York in 2003, and all I can say about that is thank god for air conditioning. Any time we vacationed as a family in an eastern or southern state, I spent a great deal of time wanting to expire. Humidity and I are not friends. Give me my dry heat any day, thank you very much.

The further one gets from the equator, the further one is from the sun--regardless of the season. Even in their respective summers when they're tilted toward the sun, the northern and southern extremes of the planet are still farther away from it than the midsection. This means that the average temperature at the higher latitudes is lower than those closer to 0°. Basic fourth grade science, amirite? So it follows that persons living in the higher latitudes have a lower tolerance for heat. As a trade-off they’re better at being cold, so everything sort of evens out in the end, but it does rather leave half the population uncomfortable for half the year. People who live at the middle latitudes probably have the best idea, all things considered. Physics dictates they shouldn’t tip too far one direction or the other, temperature wise.

Of course, the weather doesn’t always operate in a way that makes any sense whatsoever--physics be damned.

I lived in England for two years. Now there are some people who are not suited to the concept of ‘hot’. It seems that they’re experiencing a spate of hot weather the likes of which they rarely, if ever, see, and--bless them--they’re not coping too terribly well. I saw something recently that said they were up to 104°F, but for whatever reason the publication in question was asserting that for the UK, this was the equivalent of Austin, Texas, at 129°F. I'm assuming that they're trying to factor in humidity or something. 

 

And that leads us to something which, quite frankly, baffles me. "Feels like" temperatures. 58° is 58°. If it "feels like" 62°, then it ought to be 62°.

 

Don't even get me started on wind chill factors...

 

Any old way, I hope y'all are keeping cool wherever you are. Or warm, if you're in the half of the world where it's winter right now. Temperate. I hope you're existing at a temperature comfortable to yourself. Sure, that works. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to see if I can open the blinds and make my house feel more like a house than a cave-that-helps-keep-the-place-at-a-reasonable-temperature... 

And we're back!

Well, sort of.

Between my pinched nerve, emergency ballet rehearsals at the Thursday Studio, and assorted breaks in class scheduling, I haven't been doing much in the way of dancing recently. This week, though, I'm back to tapping twice a week.

Now, don't get it into your heads that I'm back to normal--I'm nowhere near it. I still don't have full range of motion or full control of my right leg. For everyday purposes, this isn't much of an issue. If I were any other person, I'd be thrilled at my progress and the fact that I'm able to lead a perfectly normal life with minimal difficulty, even with the fact that the root cause of the issue is still very much on the mend. But I'm not any other person. I'm me.

I'm a dancer who hasn't been able to dance since April.

Between the pinched nerve, the ongoing battle with Kaiser about removal of my baby-making parts, and the fact that my job has an expiration date, I'm sure you can imagine that I haven't been the happiest little bunny recently. Exercise and endorphins and whatnot, you know. And with dancing being the biggest portion of my social activity, there was suddenly a distinct lack of quality humans involved in my day-to-day. And y'all know it has to have been grating on me if I--the introverts' introvert--am moaning about a lack of people.

So I can tap again. This is good. Not to my usual standard, mind you, but well enough to get by. Twice a week is better than nothing. And there will be people I enjoy. The thing is, though...I have no idea how long it's going to be before I can do more than this, and that's frustrating. I know it's no good dwelling on it. This is going to heal when it heals and not before. That's how these things work. You have to give your body the time to do its job. I should mention that I finally had an MRI, which showed disc bulge between my L4 and L5, and my L5 and S1. This wasn't at all surprising, though it was nice to have it confirmed that it wasn't anything worse. It won't require surgery. I could possibly get a steroid injection, but that means yet more bureaucratic bullshit with Kaiser.  We'll see if I manage to win that battle.

In the meantime, I wait. And wait. And wait.

The Annual Rant

This is the time of year when I traditionally tell those of us who reside in the US to go to our rooms and think about what we've done. And hoo-boy have we been out of line this year! Between SCOTUS going to shit and people being increasingly less tolerant and accepting of, well, pretty much anything, plus all the nonsense we're managing to contribute to in the far corners of the world, we have very little whatsoever to be proud about.

And yet, and yet, a good portion of the population still turned out to do their flag-waving. The sheer balls we manage to exhibit in full view of the people we marginalize and terrorize and otherwise are particularly nasty to will never cease to amaze me.

Yes, okay, it could be so very much worse. I acknowledge that. I appreciate that. But at the rate we're going, it won't be long before we're in 'so very much worse' territory. The worst part is that I'm not sure we'll notice before it's too late. It can be pervasive. It won't all be as obvious as some of the more recent developments.

Doom and gloom, doom and gloom.

Moral: Be nice to people. It doesn't cost anything to be kind. If you're a protester, protest safely. If, like me, you're not suited to the crowds and the noise, write letters, sign petitions, and chuck money at the things that concern you and those you love, and the things that don't concern you and those you love, because someone else loves them.

And DON'T BE A DICK.