down with sickness

this morning darn informed me that i'm responsible for improving morale.
"oh. you mean i'm good cop and you're bad cop?"
"yeah."
i looked into his eyes and saw that he was soulless.

---my day didn't begin right because i got up early and exhausted to make up for the hours i'd take off later. the work day began with aota, she was stressed and i bothered her by asking for help with something she felt i should know and i walked away feeling guilty and irritated. the morning sped by and i headed off for my month and a half follow-up eye exam.

i skipped lunch because i had shit to do and was going to be losing hours anyway, so i arrived on time for my appointment but really hungry. i asked how long i'd have to wait and was told a couple of minutes. half an hour dragged on by, i got up and asked what was going on because by that stage i could've left, eaten something and returned instead of sitting burning time on an empty stomache. on the one hand i didn't want to be an ass, on the other i wanted them to know that they'd done me wrong. they told me another few minutes, which annoyed me even though this time it really was just a couple of minutes. then i went through the eye exam and my eyes couldn't focus at all when i was using both of them.

this is becoming a thing.

eventually the surgeon got to me and he told me that it all makes sense and that i should come right eventually. my next appointment is in four months. we'll see. to be fair, though, while i am having trouble with my sight it's so much better than before! i can see everything well but i just can't do detail in a hurry...

i returned to the office, wolfed down lunch and got sidetracked by a design review and an intern who'd built something on top of a major logic fail that i had to talk him through slowly just to explain where the problem was.

*sigh*

suddenly it was time to leave already and i'd barely achieved anything.

---i left for boxing and continued to bury myself in walter isaacson - steve jobs. it's as interesting and readable as everyone who pushed me to read it insisted, but it intrigues me that i see so much of myself in descriptions of his behaviour. not only in my underlying attitude to life but in the way i've always seen the world: my mother has always complained about my inability to see shades of grey. i'm definitely not as much of an asshole about it, though. at least i don't think i am...

---scrapper and i headed off to boxing. i forgot that he wouldn't be able to join the advanced class until we were already on our way and i felt bad about that. then we started warmup with the jump rope and i was failing and getting frustrated to the point where all the suck from the rest of the day focused into laser beams of anger and self-loathing that washed over me everytime i saw my reflection. and by self-loathing, i mean that "screw you!" look you might give yourself if you're staring at the mirror and seeing someone who looks just like you and is making you look bad.

the instructor walked in and when i asked the instructor if scrapper could join he responded in a way that made me feel small and stupid. for the rest of the class it was as if everything i did was pissing him off, i just couldn't get shit right and he was noticing it all. i felt like i was disappointing him as much as i was disappointing myself and my frustration levels kept rising. in restrospect, i think i actually did quite well but it doesn't matter.

he paired me up with a guy i'm friendly with but who's a beginner and doesn't really seem to be into training. a part of me felt that i was paired with him as a punishment. if it wasn't a punishment, i made it so by bringing my shit into things. i pushed him the same why i push everyone (and everyone pushes me, that's what training's all about) but he doesn't want to improve so we were both aggravated. the situation kinda improved, but then towards the end we did an uppercut drill. i got really annoyed with the way he was holding the pads, and then when it was his turn i got really annoyed with how he was hitting. it was only at the end that he pointed out how unfair this was and he was visibly upset; i realized he was right and i apologized profusely but you can't take stupid back.

fuck.

it was on that note that i left training. i'd gone to a dark place and i was seething all the way home. fortunately, talking it out with scrapper helped - it was about all sorts of things, obviously, not just a single day. it was about work and sacrifice and lessers of two evils, about expectations and outlooks and reality not being precisely what i need even though i'm aware of how ungrateful that may be considering that *knocks wood* things are going really well for me. sometimes i feel like i'm all the toys of the hundred-acre wood rolled into one.

---on a positive note my left leg is still tender and sore but it's definitely better.

...

this online dating thing is weird. according to match.com i'm missing out on all sorts of action by not subscribing, and the only way to find out if they're messing with me is to pay $20. FINE. but how come the other sites don't require cash up front?