Nudge from the Divine

I was supposed to take off of work today and go over to the Chinese School that Paula (a coworker and friend) works at and show off Leviathan (my female lavender corn snake) and give a talk on reptiles.

As you can guess from my words "supposed to" that I didn't. 

Honestly, I just couldn't do it.

I'm so peopled out...more so than usual.

And the Tech Job is being a complete BEAST right now.

I don't believe I've ever worked with coworkers so quick to whine and bitch and moan about EVERYTHING.  Conversations at work are 20% about movies/tv and 80% of everyone trying to out pitiful the other. 

So, having to deal with that for eight hours a day and it being my MoonTime....and my downstairs neighbors being more HORRID than usual....yeah, I just cannot handle any more people right now. 

And I LOVE showing Leviathan off.  She's gorgeous and so calm.  She's a great snake to prove to people that 90% of their "beliefs" about snakes are grossly inaccurate.  She's the best cure to snake "fear" (not to be confused with full blown phobia) that I have found or had the joy of watching. 

Most of the time, I would be all about showing her off and discussing all the POSITIVE things snakes do for us.  I especially like giving this talk with children because they don't have a lifetime of this "fear" (aka misconception) already blocking them from being open to learning.  Hell, I did this talk last summer for them and rather enjoyed myself. 

But I knew on Monday, there was just no way I could do it.  Just thinking of giving those three talks (breaking up the age groups), had me almost panicking.  So yes, I cancelled.  And even though it was for a good reason, I still feel guilty as hell.  I feel like I let Paula down and she's such a happy, bubbly person -- I just really hate doing that to her.  And I'm sure if I explained it in detail, and was completely honest, she totally would have been sympathetic and understood as best she could.  But honestly, even that was too much socializing for me to handle currently, so I just told her I couldn't find someone to cover my shift at work.

Man, I can't wait until Friday.  I am house-sitting again for the Robinsons and it couldn't be at a better time.  My MoonTime just completed.  The moon will be full that evening -- the SECOND full moon of the month (thus called a Blue Moon).  And I will have this awesome house and an awesome pool all to myself that evening.  I NEED that quiet and solitude to calm my frayed nerves from waging war each day at work against the onslaught of Negativity.

My coworkers comment on how quiet I am -- that I'm such an amazingly hard worker.  Little do they know that I do that in an effort to shield myself from the negativity they spray out into the work environment -- it's like tar.  Black, slick, and sticky, and it just oozes from everywhere.  And heaven help you if you get any of it on you -- that shit ain't coming out for a while.  And them?  They are just DRENCHED in it.

Honestly, it reminds of the scenes from GhostBusters when they fall into the pink ectoplasm that was running under New York City.  And as soon as it covered them, all they wanted to do was fight and kill each other.  That is exactly what this negativity is like.  They sit there and spray it out and if it lands on you, then you spray out some negative thought/words.  Which coats them and then they spray their negativity out and it gets on you and thus the cycle continues over and over and over.....for EIGHT solid hours.

So yeah, I focus on the work.  I keep my mouth shut.  And for the most part I stay out of the Tar Battle that is raging all around me.  And if I do have to venture into the battle, I do it with a lot of humor and rush out as fast as I can. 

And I've got two more weeks of this shit.

I wonder if I can claim PTSD after all of this?  ::laughs and winks:: 

Ah, see?  A PERFECT example of my dark humor that I use to survive the work day! 

But I certainly don't want to say that all day was negative.

I took Ole Lady Dog, Holly, out for a walk around the apartment complex this evening.  Alas, I did not find any blue jay feathers, though I did get a hello from one of the blue jays themselves, so that was nice.  And as I'm walking up to my building, the Lady who owns the Sausage Dogs (two SERIOUSLY obese dachshunds) walked up (without the dogs, thank goodness) and we got to talking a bit. 

Now, this is HIGHLY unusual for me.  I'm already peopled out, remember?  And if I'm walking Holly, I'm out there to enjoy nature and typically loathe human interaction.  AND add to it, I want nothing to do with any of my neighbors....except for this Lady.  She's just that awesome.

So anyways, we're just shooting the shit and she asks out of the blue "So have you taken any good pictures recently?"  And I stand there a bit dumb-founded because we haven't discussed my photography.  She says at that point "Oh, I've seen you out walking around in our neighborhood with your nice camera, so that's what I figured you did for a living." 

So I told that it was a hobby of mine and that I do a lot of nature and wild life photography.  I got to talk to her about some of the wildlife we have around our apartment complex.  All in all, it was just a really NICE conversation. 

It also felt like a small nudge from the Divine to continue working on my photography skills.  ::smiles::

Thank you, Divine.  I AM listening.