I May Just Die Now

Okay, so I don't know how the people with jobs have the time or energy to write anything worth reading.  I barely had the energy to make myself dinner.  Or the ability to get up and walk, for that matter.  I'm not kidding.  I spent four hours on my feet at work today, for the first time since I lost my job in December 2009 (when I'd regularly stand for 9-10 hours and be mostly fine), walking and shifting and reaching over my head and lifting heavy groups of hangers to bag orders, and that plus my decision to walk home (I was at the location within my perceived walking distance today) caused me to be unable to move around until about six hours after I got home.  I am not pleased with this development, and I really hope that my resistance to that kind of thing returns quickly, or I'm just going to die.  Maybe now.  Maybe I'll just fall over sideways onto the couch right now and just die.  Blah!

Anyway.. today I learned the Spanish word for stapler (es grapadora, apparently) and that you can get cramps in your knuckles.  I also learned that I need more pants than I currently have.  This whole owning only two pairs is not going to cut it for work.  Anyway, I worked for four hours today, and I've started helping customers for real.  As long as I stop forgetting that starch exists and remember to double-check the cash register when I close it, I think I'll be fine.  (My cash register training took less than a minute - I don't know how exactly to use the credit card machine, but I imagine I could puzzle that out myself if I really needed to.  I guess I'll find out on Monday.)  I actually really prefer the main store, where all the action is - it just feels friendlier, and I can walk there and back.  Please, scary boss man, let me have that location!

Today was also an excellent day at home - when I got home, S and the Toddler were outside because S was having a smoke, and you pretty much can't leave the Toddler in the house these days if you're going outside, because he will have paroxysms of grief over it.  It's kind of hilarious to watch (hey, the kid regularly gives me injuries, I'm laughing at him when he's ridiculous!), but it's really annoying to cope with, so he gets to go outside a bazillion times a day right now, and that works out well for everyone, pretty much.  Anyway, they saw me coming and he met me in the yard with a knee hug.  It was really, really cute.  After I went inside, I ate what was in my lunch box (I really don't need to pack a lunch for work - I never end up eating it, so I'm going to get grazing food instead) and watched Children of a Lesser God, which made me miss using ASL.  It also made me cry.  And I learned how to say "fuck you!" in sign language, which I'm sure will come in handy.  Haha.

J ended up waking up really early (about 4:30), and he wanted to get food, so S went to McDonald's for him, and the Toddler went along, and he almost climbed into his car seat on his own.  (I often put him in the car, so I've occasionally been asking him to try climbing in on his own.)  When they came back, I took him out of the car (S's hands were full), and I asked him if he could say my name yet, sounding it out for him very slowly.  And he said it.  Then he said it again.  And then he demonstrated for everyone else in the living room (Girl Child completely lit up), and then I used it as a form of bribery later when I was about to give him a bath - I told him if he said my name, I'd put him in the tub right then, and he immediately said it.  I'm pretty sure he knows that he's saying my name, S is really the smart one in that department, being his mother and all.  But oh god, what a rush!  Every time he says it, I just want to grab him and kiss his face off.  Totally made my day.  (Seriously, this is the absolute best part of my day today, and I mean that.  I would be more excited about him finally saying my name than if someone gave me $1000 right now.  Not that I would pass up $1000.)

Anyway, I played some FFX later in the evening, worked on my iTunes playlists some more (because I'm just never going to be done with the tweaking, I think), and then I had the idea to look up speech pathology, which I've been thinking about on and off for about 10 years now.  I think I'd like to become a licensed ASL interpreter and also get a speech pathology (or assistant) degree and work with deaf children and adults to help them learn to read lips and speak.  Maybe.  I've had a look at what you have to go through just for the interpreter certifications, and it's going to take me like four years just to get that, and usually a speech pathologist has a master's degree, so it's going to be a very, very long time before I get that, if I manage to do it at all.

Right now, it all kind of hinges on having a car.  Doing the math in my head, if I spend absolutely no extra money for about four months, I should have enough saved to get a car that runs.  Of course, Christmas is coming up, so I'll tack on an extra month for Christmas.  But in any case, I should be able to buy a car by this spring, and hopefully I'll have my permit issues sorted out so I can start driving.  (Though if I get the car and can't drive it yet, I'll just figure out how to make it be so S can drive it until I can drive it myself.  If she's agreeable - I haven't talked about this with her yet because I haven't had any prospects for getting money until this week.)

I can't think of anything else to say.  My brain isn't working very well - I'm really tired and I took two naproxen and a Zyrtec about half an hour ago, so now my brain is extra not working.  See?  I can't even make words be sentences.  But I'm off tomorrow, so I'm going to sleep a lot.