Journal

The cat’s out of the bag here at work. Yesterday, Shelly, a coworker who’s responsible for scheduling asked if I could skip my "seminar" on Tuesday December 15^th because most of the department would be at some Microsoft thing downtown. I replied to Shelly that it’s not a seminar I’m attending, I’m in a program over in Psych. She got all embarrassed with my disclosure and said words to the effect of that she wasn’t prying and that I didn’t have to share anything else about it.

I said, "Shelly, sit down." She did. "Now if I can share this stuff on my web site, I can certainly share it with you." Of course whenever you tell someone you have a web site, the conversation shifts immediately to that topic. Anyway, I launched MSIE which has the Scenic Route On-Ramp as it’s home page. (I also run Netscape which uses the URMC intranet page for it’s home page, and I use another browser called Opera as well.)

As a fellow techie, Shelly wanted to know about the site, where it’s hosted and all that. I took her to the About the Site page and got up so she could sit down at the keyboard. She said, "No. I can bring it up on my PC" and went back to her cubie.

Well, about an hour later she came back, checked to see I wasn’t on a call, and pressed the "Unavailable" button on my phone. I knew what the topic would be, so I took off my headset, sat back and let her begin. First she said, "This has nothing whatsoever to do with work. It’s purely personal." "Okay", I said. I don’t recall her exact wording, but she said she admired my courage for dealing with my issues so openly and publicly.

Thanks, Shelly. That made me feel really good. J

So. What’s been going on since last Wednesday? Well, since Jeff and I were each to begin treatment programs this week, we did what every addict does before entering treatment -- a whole lot of drugging.

I guess I should explain that instead of going to the downtown Monroe County Jail this time, as a sentenced inmate, Jeffrey’s going to the suburban Monroe County Correctional Facility, where he’ll be assigned a bunk in the drug treatment "pod". We’ve talked extensively about this. Our goal is that by having this time away from each other, and with both of us in treatment, that come February, (or whenever he gets out) we can be two recovering addicts helping each other stay clean and sober, rather than two addicts enabling each other’s chemical abuse.

That will mean a significant change in our relationship. And our roles within the relationship will be changing. Frankly, I find that just as frightening as being separated for the 100 to 120 days of his sentence that he’ll have to serve. Our relationship has already taken several different turns, and we’ve made it through. So maybe I have no reason to be frightened. But, on the other hand, a lot can happen in that amount of time, especially when rehab, for both people, is thrown into the picture.

Next, either we’ll both be single, or he’ll be single and I’ll have a boyfriend, (one can only hope!) You see, he and Debbie have broken up, again, at least for now. Then, we still seem to have a parent-child relationship in some aspects, and a brotherly relationship in others. I would like to see us emerge as true friends and equals.

One thing that gets in the way of our being equals is our ages. He’s seven years younger and there’s nothing we can do about that. Then there’s the issue income and expenditure. He’s uncomfortable with how lopsided things are now. He wants a job so he an begin to feel like he’s contributing and so he doesn’t have to ask me for pocket money.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering how things went in court on Monday. They didn’t. Let me share a note I wrote to Vince on Tuesday, after he was stunned to find both Jeff and I at the apartment in the middle of the morning.

Well on Tuesday night when Jeff picked me up from work he was still majorly cranky and argumentative. And of course I could do nothing right. I first tried to calmly respond to the issues he was discussing. Then he asked me to just be quiet. So I was. He kept right at it though and them became angry thinking I was giving him the silent treatment. Okay, so tried talking again, and was told off for not leaving the subject alone and giving him some quiet.

Talk about frustrating! Now I can understand his being cranky after having only about five hours sleep in the preceding five days, and essentially staying drunk and high 24x7 for the past week. It didn’t make it any easier to take. Hunnylemmetellya, I was so relieved when he finally passed out – fully clothed, leaning against the credenza, lighter in one hand, stem in the other.

As you may recall, from his years in jails and prisons, Jeff wakes up with fists flying if he’s touched or disturbed while he’s sleeping. (I’ve found the safest way is to gingerly poke his feet because he usually sits up before he starts kicking.) He never even flinched when I removed the lighter and the stem from his hands, or when I unceremoniously tossed a blanket over him, or when I plopped his pillows on the floor next to him. And he slept there on the floor for the better part of the next 36 hours. I was SO grateful for the peace and quiet.

So this is the end of my first week under the new work arrangements. All my time is spent on the phones now. Largely due to the mainframe connectivity problems throughout the week, it’s been a bit more challenging than I thought. I mean there were times this week when I was taking three calls a minute for over a half-hour. Still, I haven’t started answering the home phone "Good morning/afternoon, ISD Help Desk, this is Bruce!" But I’ve started to feel uncomfortable if I’m not wearing a headset.

I’ve had to change my work routine a bit now that I’m not out roaming the hospital for half the day. I used to sit outside and read at lunchtime, unless I felt like writing. But now that I sit on my ass in front of a PC all day long, I’m walking at lunchtime. It takes me just over a half-hour to circumnavigate the Medical Center. Counting time to walk from the office to the outdoors and back, I get in almost 45 minutes of walking daily.

What I’m really enjoying are my windows. The entire width of my cubie, from desktop to ceiling is glass, facing due south. The view isn’t all that hot, but the natural light is just great. I’m hoping that eight or nine hours a day of natural light will help with my Seasonal Affective Disorder. I really don’t have the money to buy one of those lightboxes they prescribe.

But I’m not sure how long I’ll have my windows. Yesterday we found out where we’re moving to. Here’s the story. The current Emergency Department facilities were constructed in the late 70s. A lot of things have changed since then, not only with regard to medical technology, but there’s a lot more people using the ED than there were 20 years ago. So it’s now really dated and overcrowded. And in it’s present location, there’s no room to grow.

The new ED is going to be constructed right under where I sit. This is the only remaining two-story wing in the medical center, and therefore, the easiest to knock down. So we have to move, as does Facilities Engineering and the Athletic Club, and the laundry and garbage loading docks.