posting today what I wrote yesterday

Climbing bridges, getting stuck in sketchy bridge elevators, sweating in hot machinery rooms, taking measurements of bird wire netting in even hotter stairwells, commuting to Manhattan, then to Jersey, is all exhausting, but it’s skipping meals that completely wipes me out. By the time I was given a chance to eat lunch at about 4 PM, it was too late: the damage was done and it was irreversible. Hence after making it back to Brooklyn, picking up some parmesan cheese in the grocery, showering, throwing my grease stained, and possibly, lead infested clothes in the wash, trying my luck again with pesto (a success this time), and packaging a lunch for tomorrow, I don’t even have energy left to return a phone call (though I do have enough energy to feel guilty about it—I should really call…).

Realizing that the longer I wait in posting thoughts, the more difficult it becomes to retrieve them…So everything from last week, the week before, and the week before that, that I didn’t post immediately, has become largely uninteresting to me, but will give it a shot anyway… Had nothing much to do at work last week, or the week before, and was getting nervous…They already told me they don’t lay people off, but it’s unsettling to be sitting day after day getting paid to become an expert on my latest hypochondriac compulsion*. On Friday, my unease about work was momentarily quieted only to be transformed into a greater anxiety with my getting an offer to spend three months on the field. At first, I thought, why not. But soon after realized that I really really don’t want to. Today I was on the field. It’s sort of exciting once in three months—especially when you get stuck in an elevator with seemingly no way out other then getting a boost from one of the guys so that you can climb out of the elevator and then down a ladder hundreds of feet above the deck (I was really starting to sweat, despite having realized that I’m not nearly as terrified as heights as I once imagined...luckily I was saved the trouble of finding out exactly how bold I am since one of the guys climbed out and manually operated the elevator from below, granting us freedom from the tiny, sketchy, hand operated lift)—but to spend three full months on the field! I can play the part, sort of, I did today at least, but an academic at heart, and an anti-feminist woman, the last thing I want to be doing is manual labor, or watching others do manual labor, inspecting machinery or concrete, and getting dirty and sweaty day after day…But I think I’m going to be able to avoid it. If necessary, I will voice my inflamed tendon as a health concern. Oh yeah, my running days may be over…A somewhat reluctant sacrifice in realization that despite my small stature (physically), I am not completely invincible to its damaging effects. But cycling is much more difficult in many ways, and I’m enjoying the new challenge. A friend’s misfortune shocks and greatly upsets me, reminding me how cruel and unfair the real world could be. Looks like I’ll be moving the city, and spending more than I’m making this year: too high rent + way too $ in taxes + payments on loans + gym membership + credit card bills + electric + internet + health and dental insurance + 3% to T. Rowe Price + my commute + courses at community college + food = paycheck + money out of savings. And I must stop joking about marrying rich because people are beginning to take me seriously. Perhaps I should add the tax for the mathematically challenged to the above equation so that I have some hope (however slim it may be) of not going completely broke my first year out of school…I changed my opinion on Daphne Merkin, too many “big” words make me question her talent, and her writing got a bit tiresome regardless, but still, some of her work meets my approval. American History X: very powerful film. Last week, I finally met the guy I decided I had a crush on my first day of work, making it both harder and easier to sustain the imaginary crush—mostly harder. And the mosquitoes must be quite desperate, because they don’t like my blood, yet they’ve attacked my legs…

*A couple weeks ago, BPS accused me of being a hypochondriac, and as with everything I think I might be exhibiting symptoms of, I did some research on the hypochondria illness. Turns out, although I obsess over my health, am disturbed by any little thing that goes wrong, and my score on this quiz suggests I'm a hypochondriac, I don’t meet the defining criteria of hypochondriacs: I don't have a "preoccupying fear of having a serious illness" and rarely attribute my symtoms to "serious illness," I'm simply preoccupied with symptoms of minor disorders and (incidentally) common ailments that I almost definitely have (e.g., anemia). Hence, I’m decidedly hardly a hypochondriac, but rather, simply someone who refuses to function at anything less than optimal level and thus feels the need to research anything that feels slightly amiss as a preventive tool to avoid traditional medical interference at all costs…