Going nowhere fast

First off, I have to offer sincere apologies to any friends I've been ignoring lately. There are conversations I've let lag, congratulations I should have extended, sympathy and a "virtual shoulder" I haven't offered. But I'm experiencing a terrible sense of deja vu lately that's caused me to backslide and get a little too caught up again in my own narrow little world.

The biggest thing going on is the kittens. On Friday a week ago, I brought home the second of them, Olive (who was really the first, but the timing of all of this has been a bit skewed). Aside from an hour or so that I let her loose so they could check each other out, she had to be confined in the bedroom, as she'd just been spayed and couldn't be running or jumping around until she'd healed, much less tussling with a fellow kitten. So, for the most part, the two of them spent that couple of days poking their paws at each other through the gap under the bedroom door. By Monday, though, little Alec was lethargic and not eating or drinking. He wanted nothing but to remain curled up asleep in his cat bed, and was like a limp dishrag when I picked him up. It was just a little too similar to the goombah's condition when he got ill last fall, so I packed Alec off to the vet that day. That afternoon, the diagnosis was that he had both sinus and urinary tract infections accompanied by a high fever, and they wanted to keep him overnight on fluids and antibiotics. On Tuesday, I was told that he was eating and his fever had reduced enough for him to come home. But he wasn't better. He ate and drank a few times, and in between I used the syringe from his antibiotics to get more water down his throat so he wouldn't become dehyrdrated.

By Friday morning, he was lethargic again. Back to the vet. The news later that day was that the vet had no clue what was causing the fever and that they couldn't control it. They had given ice water enemas to my poor little, 5 month old, 4 lb kitten throughout the day, but nothing would bring down his temperature. As of yesterday, though, the fever seemed to have broken and he was eating again. The vet wanted to keep him over this weekend, though, for observation and intensive antibiotic treatments. As for the other one, now that her spay stitches are out and she's free from confinement, Olive has had me all to herself. She's been alternately spoiled rotten and cried over a little bit whenever I've thought about how she was supposed to be getting to know her buddy Alec during these past two days. I've become amazingly attached to these two little kittens over the last two weeks, and I think that Alec's going to hold a special place in my heart if he survives this (it gives me a fucking pang to use that 'if').

On top of all this feline drama, work is sucking big time again. Or perhaps I'm just not dealing well with the usual suckage because I'm stressed over the kittens. I don't know. What I do know is that I go into work feeling totally un-focused, un-directed and, increasingly, incompetent. The administrative division of the store is currently understaffed and we had a rough holiday season, so there are no plans to add anyone and re-balance the workload. We're also not buying much in the way of merchandise, which makes a portion of my job as inventory manager/assistant buyer a tad obsolete. On top of that, my supervisor is going through a crisis of her own, trying to set up new profit & loss reports while dealing with the responsibilities left open by our staffing situation. The result is that she's both losing touch and micro-managing at the same time. She delegates things to me periodically, but then takes them back. Or, she'll make me responsible for something that I really don't want to be involved in, and then take over a project that's specifically within the scope of my position. What makes it all really unbearable is finding out that the owners of the store don't seem to care. They're focused on the sales and merchant side of the business, and have pretty much washed their hands of our little administrative world. It's confusing, frustrating and demoralizing. Writing my self-review this week is gonna be tons of fun.

So, needless to say, I've gotten stuck back in that "sleeping limb" state I described a few weeks ago. Despite the new friendships I've formed and the great experiences I've had in recent months, I've let myself descend into a rut of physical slothdom, avoiding my usual outdoors pursuits and doing absolutely nothing productive to improve my home, my work situation, or my life in general. I've lost the energy for it. Instead, I've been narcotizing myself by spending my days off cruising my beloved back-country roads and hanging out in my favorite coffee/tea shops. Feels good, but gets me nowhere. I know from experience that all of this is temporary, but for as long as it lasts it'll be a struggle to avoid becoming as self-absorbed and self-pitying as I was this time last year. I probably could (should?) reach out to all those new friends of mine for whatever help they might be inclined to offer, but I'm just not used to doing that. Instead, habit makes me retreat back into seclusion to try and figure it out on my own. At least there's always music to suit the mood...

Nowhere Fast

Will I ever get to where I'm going?
Will I ever follow through with what I had planned?
I guess it's possible that I have been a bit distracted
and the directions for me are a lot less in demand.

Will I ever get to where I'm going?
If I do, will I know when I am there?
If the wind blew me in the right direction
would I even care?
I would.

I take a look around; it's evident the scene has changed.
And there are times when I feel improved upon the past.
Then there are times when I can't seem to understand at all
and yes it seems as though I'm going nowhere...
really fucking fast.

Not Brandon's best bit of poetry, but the passion in his vocals makes the words intensely meaningful.