Day One of Resocialization... um, I mean Passport Training

I survived my first day of passport adjudication training. It was actually kind of nice to be in receiving mode instead of output mode. Class today lasted a total of about 4 hours they let us out at 3:00. Yippee!!! I love passport training. !! passport processing itself may be another story... it takes an average of 2 minutes to process a passport application... that's ... 30 an hour x 8 x 6... ugh, I don't do math, but that's a LOT of freaking passports.

Just so you all know how seriously the government is (now) taking this problem (after the fact), my girlfriend is up at the National Passport Center in New Hampshire (where they sent most of the unfortunate PMF's to do their duty while living out of a hotel for two months) and she is processing passports IN THE GYM. I am not kidding you, her workstation is right next to the fly machine. LOL.

I have learned that my workstation will be in the hall.

Sweet.

Train under simulated race conditions... er... and other youtube hilarity

This is pretty funny -- just saw it over on IronSunshine. Had to share! I've never done a triathlon (hm... new fitness goal perhaps???) but I've seen the race start and it doesn't look fun... lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3S0wu4Zbfk

Also, while we're on the topic of entertaining videos... please stop what you are doing and surf over to Paul's blog right now and click on the "Magical Link". Seriously, go now!! Hahaha.....

everything happens for a reason...

i have to grumble about my foot... i have metatarsalgia, kinda like plantar fascitis except in the ball of your foot, where the middle toe rubs around on the fat pad, mine is inflamed somehow and it makes walking/running painful. it is going away slowly though, feeling better every day. now i just have to not be an a$$ about it and go out and run 5 miles like i want to. i have no idea really how this happened to me - in April i ran a 10 mile race with no problem and suddenly i get foot injury with no real cause evident.

i am feeling super emotional today it is my last day at my real job before passport duty and i must leave my work (that i am passionate about) behind for the next 8 weeks... AND work saturdays for the rest of the summer
AND the last article in Oprah mag that I read this morning was all about one of her golden retrievers dying i was almost bawling but it was about how she realized that her dog's death was a gift just like her life and she learned from it...

i need to think on that one as i have to ask god what i am meant to learn from having cancer so young and the other experiences in my life, they seem to be piling up things not really going how i would like them to and i need to ask god, what are you trying to show me right now?

- cancer and all that nonsense
- craziness with having to change bc pills, then stopping them
- my foot injury which seems to take away many things i love (running, walking)
- my work is getting taken away, even though temporarily, and i have to sacrifice my saturdays to do repetitive boring monotonous work (this is not what i studied my ass off in grad school to do!)
- my bf is moving to hawaii in early october, that is coming up fast

it really seems too much for one person in just 8 months to handle, but i know there is a reason these things are coming into my life and i just don't know what yet - am i supposed to do something? do something different? just wait it out, ride the storm and then suddenly i will break through the curtain?? i do not ask god why why me. not even for a minute. because why not me? i feel so lucky that these are my vanilla sufferings and i am not living in a war zone or starving or or or... but this is not the life i imagined at the moment. i nkow it will pass, as all things, this too shall pass (my mom always says), but can't help wondering if it's some karmic thing that needs me to do something that i wish i knew what it was.......

tgif, y'all, that's all i got to say!

Nostalgia

I regularly get really powerful nostalgia. Not sure why I'm sharing this, but it's been on my mind. I think it means I'm not in the right place somehow... something is off in my chi. If I was living fully and passionately, completely absorbed in the present, I would not be overcome by random waves of intense nostalgia. Sometimes small things set it off. Cooking my eggs. The way the light looks at the sunrise. A memory. Or nothing at all in particular. There's not really a specific time I get nostalgic for... sometimes it's moments in my childhood, certain memories... sometimes college or other more recent times. There are times I decidedly do NOT get nostalgic for. Alabama is one of those. I never ever wish I could relive that place. Not for a minute. Nostalgia is it's own sensation. It's not remembering, not even fond remembering, although that is part of it. It's not missing, either... It's a mix of memory, longing, joy, sadness, missing, emptyness... all at once. Lately I have the odd, unsettled feeling like I'm missing out on something... or just missing something. Like life is passing me by... I feel inordinately sad about the simple passing of time.

Crazy is as crazy does...

Ballston Metro is a wacky place. For such a high rent area, there are lots of weirdos and shady characters that hang out there... the drug dealer with the marijuana baseball cap who sits on the stairwell by the little cafe (and his friends), the little Asian man playing that funny instrument, couple homeless guys, posse's of high-schoolers looking for trouble... and lately I have been seeing this lady who looks rather normal, except that she has a bag of birdseed and is FEEDING THE GAWDAM PIGEONS. Who, I implore you, dear readers, WHO? Feeds pigeons? PIGEONS? This is why I must assume that, although she looks like a regular 9-5'er, she's got a screw loose, if you know what I mean... They aren't real "birds" in my opinion, they are PESTS. Like rodents. Or cockroaches. In the category of "Things We Try to Exterminate." They are prolific enough on their own, they certainly don't need to be FED. Shit. Every time I walk by her and she is doling out seed to the crowd of pigeons, I want to shake her.

Ok, oK! I'll post already!

My one and only fan (Chris) is getting restless that I haven't updated my poor neglected blog! Before I forget, my orchid is dying! the leaves are turning yellow and frying off... what do I do??
Seriously, no one reads this blog. My mom and sister check up, Adam clicks on every once in a while to see if the stories I tell about him are true, and Chris... and Paul wanders over every once in a while. Oh, and a shout out to Maxine in Miami, my cancer sister - hey Maxine! And that's it!

I've been blogging over on a fitness forum where I can obsess about my macronutrient ratios and how to perfect my squat form in the gym and it's normal and people actually read what I write!! I suspect it's the cancer flavor of this blog, it probably scares off anyone who wanders in to see what it's about. That and I need a new, better title probably. But the cancer bit, for sure... I don't think I would have dwelled on a cancer blog in my days BC (before cancer) because, you know, if you don't acknowledge it and focus on it, then it's not real. But getting to know someone with cancer, even just through the blogosphere, brings it home - it happens to normal people, just like me, going about their business.

What else can I say?

I've made some recent forays onto USAJobs looking for alternative work situations (i.e.: not in DC) because I'm reaching the breaking point with this city. There are many times during my days when I just think to myself, I can't do this anymore! Like today for instance, I'm riding the metro home and of course the AC doesn't work in the car I happen into and of course it's humid and soggy and crowded as hell in there. The woman behind me has her bulbous bosoms and large belly pressed up against me and I feel violated by these three masses poking into my back and rear end... the guy in front of me is leaning his sweaty back against my arm and someone has b.o. A woman sneezes several times without covering her face. This is my life.

If I didn't have the goshdarn coolest job in the world (IMHO), I would up and quit this place in a heartbeat. My real dream job is, of course, leading rafting tours down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, but I don't think those jobs come with stellar health plans and, well, the cancer thing kinda threw a wrench in any plans I might've dreamed up for flitting around nomad-style again. At least in the near term.

I don't mean to sound negative, but I did just get off the metro and these are the things that wear on me... next time I'll try to post from my happy place!

Adam caught a Fish!!

Reeled in a big one... he almost had to put his beer down.