If I didn’t have classes to teach today, I would have loved to call in sick and go back to bed. However, not only do I have classes to teach, but I spent all afternoon yesterday pulling objects out of storage to use in the class. I got home and was totally exhausted. I woke this morning with my back hurting. Even if I didn’t have classes to teach, I probably wouldn’t call in sick. I work with people who’ll call in sick for the most minor things, including “mental health days,” which basically means the person just didn’t want to go to work that day. I have a better work ethic than that, not that it gets noticed. If I have responsibilities that can’t be postponed, even if it’s something someone else could handle, I take my job seriously. Anyway, “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho; it’s off from work I go.”* I may not “ dig dig dig dig dig dig dig” the “whole day through” like the seven dwarfs in Snow White, but my job “is what I really like to do.”

*Before anyone points it out, I know the lyrics are actually, “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho; it’s home from work we go.” 

I had a weird night of sleep last night. It’s not like I didn’t sleep well; I slept really well and woke up refreshed this morning. However, what made it weird was that I feel like I was dreaming all night long, one dream after another. Some of you might say that everyone dreams during REM sleep, and that’s certainly true. I know I dream, but I never wake up feeling like I’ve been dreaming all night. I can’t remember any of the dreams, just vague flashes here and there this morning. Every so often, I vividly remember my dreams; the vast majority of the time, I do not remember any of my dreams. 

One of those bits and pieces I remember was dreaming about the movie Cruel Intentions. I’m not sure why I was dreaming about this movie other than a friend and I were discussing the movie Friday night. I wouldn’t actually call it discussing the movie, I was mainly saying that this was one of my gay awakenings. There were certainly other things I saw or that happened that really cemented to me that I was gay, but the scene above in which Sebastian (Ryan Phillipe) drops his towel after getting out of the pool is one I will always remember vividly. Many gay men around my age will say that this scene was their gay awakening too. I think that’s what made this somewhat mediocre movie a cult classic. Oh, and my dream car has been a black vintage Jaguar XK140 convertible, like the one Sebastian drives in the movie.

Anyway, as I sit here drinking my tea, it’s nice to have the feeling that I slept well last night and had pleasant dreams. Whether we remember our dreams or not, I suspect we have all woken up some mornings knowing we had a night full of unpleasant dreams and nightmares. So, it’s very nice to wake up knowing that you had a restful night of sleep filled with pleasant dreams.

Not only is it going to be a busy Monday, it’s going to be a busy week. I have to prepare for a class I’m teaching tomorrow. I’ll be teaching about objects I do not know anything about nor do I understand them. I just hope that when I pull the items, they make a bit more sense than when I looked them up in our database. I’m also hosting a guest today, which means not only a tour of the museum and several meetings, but also dinner tonight. It will be a long 12-hour day. I’ll leave home at around 7 am this morning and probably not get back home until at least 7 pm this evening. I just hope everything goes as planned today; if so, if it all goes smoothly, it shouldn’t be too tiring. At least I’ll get a good dinner tonight. We’ll be going to a restaurant that I love. The restaurant is really the only one nice enough to take guests to, but I’m told our former alternate restaurant is finally opening back up after being closed since the July floods caused massive damage in the restaurant. The rumor had been that it was closed permanently, but it looks like it will finally open again.

Usually, I look forward to Fridays. My regular work schedule has me working from home on Fridays, but not today. A mandatory meeting was scheduled for today to take care of an issue that should have been taken care of over a year ago, but my superiors have fiddle farted around and done nothing. If they were actually strong enough to be in the positions they are in, this would have been nipped in the bud the first time it happened, but that time, they fucked things up so bad, the problem just continued in a slightly different form. So, instead of addressing the problem head on by saying to the problem individual, “You can either be a professional at work, or maybe this is not the right place for you,” they are calling everyone together to discuss how we can “reduce workplace tension and stress.” I shouldn’t be so pissed off by the agenda, because none of it pertains to me. I already do everything that is on the agenda. 
The only “solution” that is being imposed is one that will cause more “tension and stress” not reduce it. Part of the reason this will cause more stress is we are currently understaffed because of another idiotic decision. We just don’t have the staff to make this solution work. The real solutions that need to be made should have been enforced since it was first identified as an issue. However, my supervisors can’t even regularly follow this rule (I’m the only one who does), which is simply to be at work on time and work the 8-hour day we are supposed to work. My supervisors have been so lax about this issue that everyone but me push the limits because they’ve been able to come in 

late and leave early, with the additional problem of not letting anyone know they will be late or leaving early. 

There are only one definitive solutions that will fix the issues: fucking communicate. With texting and email, it’s very simple to communicate, even if you’re too passive aggressive to communicate face-to-face. I think there is only one solution to take care of the “tension and stress” at my workplace is to get rid of the person who is the root cause of the problem, which is not currently a workable solution because it would leave me as the only full time employee at the museum. 

Quite frankly, I’m tired of being the only person trying to keep the peace because my supervisors can’t do their jobs effectively.

But hopefully, by mid morning today, this meeting will be over and I will be busy with other duties until my weekend will officially begin. Then, I can enjoy a cozy weekend at home with Isabella. With 14+ inches of snow expected tomorrow, I won’t be leaving my apartment this weekend.

Thanks for reading my rant. 

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Do you ever wish you could just crawl back in bed and tell the world to fuck off and leave you alone? I kind of feel that way this morning, and I’ve been feeling it more recently. Mostly, this is just because of various aggravations that just make me want to scream. I have a bad habit of not taking action until it reaches a boiling point. I either hope it will get better if I’m just patient, or I try to ignore the issue. However, every so often, all these aggravations get too much all at once. I think that’s what’s going on right now. I just can’t decide if I want to crawl back into bed and ignore the world around me or if I just need to run away and have a vacation. I have only taken one “me vacation” since before the pandemic. I’d really love to go up to Montreal for a few days, but finances aren’t going to allow for that or any other vacation. Regardless, whatever it is I need, I want an escape, but none of that is going to happen because the world doesn’t stop just because I want to escape for a little while.

I enjoy my work from home days. It means I can actually make myself something for lunch and do some housework, like laundry, while also monitoring emails and getting some other work done. Not to mention, it’s one less day I have to drive into work and that saves a little gas money. Normally, I work from home on Fridays, but this week, I was supposed to work from home today. I have work responsibilities Tuesday through Friday that require me to be in person. 

However, it’s not going to work this week. I had a coworker who took a trip and was supposed to come back yesterday and be in person at work today so I could have a work from home day this week. When I rescheduled my work from home day to Monday, I had said that I doubted I’d get to take it because with this coworker, there seems to always be an excuse for why they can’t work on a day after returning from a trip, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt this time. By the way, this coworker had a commitment that they were supposed to be in person for, which I why I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe it’s not just an excuse this time. Maybe my coworker’s plane really was delayed and the airline couldn’t rebook a flight until today. Maybe those things are true, but I looked to see what flights were delayed, and the only ones that were would not have been flights my coworker would have been taking. Maybe I’m mistaken, but this delayed flight fits in with this coworker’s pattern of behavior. Regardless, I’m aggravated that I have to be the one to lose my work from home day this week, and I’m sure my coworker will still take their work from home day this week because they never, no matter the reason, miss their work from home day. I’m hoping to have two work from home days next week, at least that’s what my boss has promised me. We’ll see. 🤞

I was thinking about what to write about this morning. I thought about how this had been a rough week because of a migraine I’ve had since Sunday, but I didn’t want to just complain. The problem is, as much as I tried, I couldn’t come up with anything else, and I really don’t want to complain about my week. Thankfully, I’ll be working from home tomorrow, and I can just relax and take it easy over the weekend.