Brain of a Goldfish

I'm sore. Tired. And my hair looks like a mop. Not one of those sleek mops, either. The kind of mop that you've never really gotten around to chucking.

The last couple of days have been long. Well, no, they've been the usual 24 hour variety, but events during the course of the day have made them seem to go on and on. Sunday was inventory at Le Shack, so I ended up getting there for 7 in the morn (requiring me to wake up at 5:30AM, since the buses run really really slow early Sunday morning) and stayed for my normal shift starting at 10 and ending at 7PM. An entire day of counting with the gun and then reconcile. That night, when I attempted sleep, all I could think of when I closed my eyes was me running around the store with the damned gun and counting those friggin parts. It was like those times in college when I would play massive amounts of Diablo or The Sims and have it wander through my mind while drifting to sleep. Except *bad*. I don't know how I managed to get unconscious with my sanity intact. I fully believe that there's a circle of hell devoted to retailers where there's perpetual inventory going on. And the counts are always off. Always! Bwah-ha-ha!

Monday I had to work too, but from my more usual 1PM. I hadn't caught up on sleep the previous night, though. I need some alone time, that's my problem. I'm at work, I'm surrounded by co-workers. I'm at home, I'm surrounded by family. I require some time when I'm conscious and not speaking to anyone ("recharge time", I like to think), and the only time I can swing that is in the wee hours of the morning. Leading to me heading to bed at some ungodly hour, even though I have to wake up around 9 or 10AM. When I first got in, though, I seemed to be doing okay. Then, around 4ish, maybe I'd just dealt with an irate customer, who knows? my energy drained away. I literally felt myself losing strength; it was surreal and would have been hilarious if I didn't know that I had to work for at least another 4 hours still. How I made it through the day I don't know. I spent way too much of that shift sitting in front of the home theatre section listening to music and staring out the window. The rest of that day is somewhat of a blur now.

So yesterday was Tuesday. Tuesday is open the Shack, work til 3, then swimming at 8. It was slow as hell in there. Slow's good in that I get to spend lots of time web-surfing and catching up on various web-related thinggeys. It's bad because, hell, no sales mean small paycheck. That day, instead of hanging out after work until class, I went home. I'd visited the library and my bookbag, filled with various items required for swim, had no room to hold the books I'd picked out. Also, I was tired. Very very tired. I started reading The Trekkies Guide to Deep Space Nine I'd managed to find (some pricks are holding on to Part Two of Top 10 for dear life, it would seem) and dropped it out of exhaustion. I fell into the sleep that leaves you not refreshed, but slightly nauseous when you wake up from it and knew it was bad mojo. Decided simply to head out to Best Buy and laptop browse before class. All I'm looking for is a piece of equipment to sustain my RPG habit, so I can maybe start up with "Everquest" (I would have taken it up during college but I couldn't justify the $20/month; I still can't fully justify it, but I have even less life now than I had then and I think it'd be a welcome distraction). I was also, for some reason, desperate to find Spiderman. Couldn't find a widescreen version. Muy depressing.

Okay, so I head to swimming. I got there early, in order to try to recall the whole backstroke/not breathing water thing. I often joke that I have the brain of a goldfish (learn one thing and if I learn another thing the first thing is lost), but it seems to be totally appropriate in this case. Last week I was backstroking okay, but this week I just couldn't manage it. And I *still* can't freestyle and breath for the life of me. Hindsight tells me exhaustion might have had something to do with it, but, ironically enough, I was too exhausted to realize that at the time. I was just immensely *immensely* frustrated by it all. I don't think it was a unique feeling for me, seeing as only two other people showed up to class this week. The instructor really wasn't helping. Her constant "this is easy" to every step was just...ugh. I swallowed a disgusting amount of water for the first time ever while trying to coordinate the "in through mouth, out through nose, stay above water" bit. My left arm wouldn't cooperate while attempting to backstroke and I kept breathing in water when it flopped down lazily and splashed my face. That led to me sitting in the water, and more water breathing. And a sore lower back this morning. Around 8:25 I found myself fighting the urge to leave the pool and not come back. There was no point in staying, seeing as there's no way I'm going to pass the exam to say I'm competent enough to head to intermediate. And there's a limit to how much chlorinated water one can take in before one explodes. Stuck it out, though, headed to Blockbuster (picked up Spiderman, some Season 1 Six Feet Under eppys, Starsky and Hutch, and something else which I forget), then headed home. I tried to watch Spiderman before going to sleep, but I was too pooped.

And, so, here I am. Frizzy hair and all. I was planning on going to the hairdresser, but seeing as I have $40 in the bank and I volunteered to make dinner (meaning I have to *buy* groceries too) it's a no go. I do hope I end up with that Academic Advisor job. I handed in my app and notes, and the woman told me she'd call me "next week". Heh. That usually means "no" in my experience. But I'm so out of Radioshack once school starts. Need...job. Now.

Day off. Yay!