I Work a 12-Hour Day & Only Get KFC??

I know everyone says this and it isn't always true, but I am a light sleeper. The alarm on my phone wakes me up reliably. Except for this morning, of course, the morning I had a 7:30am meeting. It's like my junior year of college when the only time I was late to class was the last day of the semester. This morning, I was left with twenty minutes to get up, brush my teeth, use the facilities, run around grabbing scraps of clothes, feed the cats, locate the cats, etc.

Yes, I ended up working a 12-hour day. I don't know what happened, but for the last couple of weeks, I've felt very unmotivated at work. I just wanted to get home and hunt for cute house things I really can't afford on Pinterest. Anyone reading this may think that I'm too hard on myself, and as long as I work a full day, I deserve to go home on time and relax. But I'm not used to even wanting that. Today, though, something clicked. I didn't even flinch about not taking a lunch break (after missing breakfast as well - and I always eat a hearty breakfast of one microwaved waffle or pop-tart.) I was suddenly energized to keep typing on my keyboard! I was inspired.

Or it could've been related to me suddenly having a lot more responsibility since we moved SEO in-house, and who is now responsible for making sure our clients are found on page 1 of Google? Oh, yes, me! And who got scolded for 20 minutes yesterday by a client about his rankings for the past 4 years? Oh, yes, me too!

Sometimes I also assist with HR, which I love, but interviewing hasn't always worked out. I'm mentioning this now because I remember a woman I had interviewed for the Executive Assistant position. She had been laid off recently, but a whole weekend later than she should've. Her company let everyone know that if they were lucky enough not to be cut by that previous Friday, they were safe.

Well, their head of HR had horrible weeks full of letting go of most of the office, and everyone who wasn't called in his office was frequently darting their eyes toward the clock and calendar - waiting to see if they make it until the end of the day on Friday!

On Thursday night, driving home, their head of HR had a heart attack and crashed his car. Dead before anyone could help him. I was surprised the applicant told me this, and that when she told me that, it sounded like she was more upset about the remaining firings being put off until Monday, making her and many others feel safe when they weren't.

I don't think I'm that stressed out yet - plus, my eyes are too bad to drive, so that exact thing can't happen to me anyway - but I'm close. House hunting, house signing, etc., has kept me from my therapist for a few weeks. At first, I was fine. I never used to go to therapy. But then, when I started feeling itchy and anxious at work, I've started wanting to go into the office of my boss' wife and talk to her about what I'm worried about. She's nice, but I need to hesitate before treating my co-boss like a therapist. And treating work hours like therapy, even if I need therapy because of work!

So, this entire post is about how I just need to take my daily crazy pill (what I charmingly call my anti-depressants) and see my damn therapist.

Oh, right, the title of this post? I missed breakfast, worked through lunch, and my fiance is currently out, getting me a $5 bucket from KFC. At least it's coming from his wallet.

Things I Do Instead of Being Productive

When I was an undergraduate, one of my writing professors had us all read a short story about a woman who would do careless things just to amuse her. One thing was buying a house and then wandering around in it, turning on lights, and going Hm, I have a house. It has stairs that go up and down to blank, bare rooms. I have a kitchen primarily not used for cooking. (I only imagine this was the exact dialogue in the woman's head because that's what I would think.)

Everyone in class thought that was ridiculous and unrelatable. Who would buy a house just because it amused them? Completely reckless!

So, here's what my life has become:

1. I got a promotion and instead of taking the time to consider how my life is progressing, where I wanted to go, and what I should start doing now to get there, I bought the most expensive apartment and new furniture that I could afford.
2. I made a late New Years' Resolution to start posting more regularly on my blog (we all see how that has gone, right?), and promptly ignored it.
3. I made a late New Years' Resolution to start spending an hour a day working on my literary journal, and promptly ignored it (as I am doing right now.)
4. I adopted a cat named Teddy one day while volunteering at the animal shelter because they ran out of things for me to do and said Hey, you can play with the cats in the cat room until your ride gets here. Then they learned not to let me do that anymore.
5. I bought Teddy Lupin (yes, Harry Potter) a scratching post that he promptly ignored (he takes after me.)
6. I did not do anymore wedding planning for two months and instead would go to work, walk the 10 minutes back to the apartment, and binge watch any anime on Netflix (in my defense, I'm having a half Great Gatsby / half anime wedding. This is called research. And spending all night in the same position on the couch, staring at the TV, forgetting about every single thing else I was supposed to do.)
7. I started seeing a new therapist because my first therapist, who diagnosed me with having trust issues, could never show up for our therapy appointments on time. Last time, she didn't show up at all. I wasn't even upset, I laughed. I'm still laughing (and a little bit of crying.)
8. I don't get paid overtime but sometimes I work 11 hour days (approximately 6:30am to 5:30pm with no lunch break), then reward myself by buying nice things I forget about. Like tickets to Mamma Mia's farewell tour, which was this past Wednesday, and I just did not remember to go.
9. Rented Good Morning, Vietnam finally and was actually "nice fiance" and helped my fiance with his paper for one of his history courses by watching the movie with him, telling him everything I thought was important about the plot and characters, and making him write it down word-for-word because I am, in my own words from that night, "A complete genius." This, of course, ended up being what we did instead of remembering to finally see my favorite musical live. 
10. Tried to start volunteering for our local LGBT and interreligious organizations to help out, and was completely blown off. I guess someone isn't "free labor material" anymore.
11. Walk around my apartment daily, turning on and off the lights, and going Hm, I have an apartment. It has stairs that go up and down to blank, bare rooms. I have a kitchen primarily not used for cooking. I use it to store more action figures and books.