I find the month of June 2010 guilty of the following:

• One count of my partner who does all the work I don’t want to do being on vacation for a month, leaving me with twice the work to do and the only person at work I can have a real conversation with gone.
• One count of a staff member just not showing up any more leaving us shorthanded by one for the duration of the month.
• One count of a staff member injuring herself with a box cutter leaving us shorthanded by another one for the duration of the month.
• Two counts of staff members losing family members causing us to be further shorthanded, in one case for a week and in the other for the duration of the month.
• Four counts of machinery literally breaking.
• Three counts of my supposed second in command leaving early without letting me know and leaving me with extra work that I had to rush through so I could be done in time to catch my ride.
• Two counts of my supposed second in command calling in to say he won’t be coming to work for reasons deemed suspicious.
• One count of me not getting done in time to catch my ride.
• One count of the paper being delayed hours to wait for the results of a hockey game. (Fact: Anyone who cared about that game and for some reason hadn’t watched it on television or caught the results on the news or on the Internet or from friends should really just not bother)
• Untold counts of me spending hours trying to get to sleep but unable because of heat or noise from outside.
• Eight counts of me finally being asleep and then being awakened by some external stimuli (In one case it was a cannon salute for the Queen. Am I the only one who thinks maybe she’s been around the world enough that a cannon salute isn’t going to impress her much?)
• One count of being called into work when I had already been awake for twenty-one hours.
• Three counts of me crashing an sleeping for ten or more hours at a time, eating up an entire day of time spent not working.
• Two counts of having to postpone Father’s Day dinner because of work.
• Two counts of having to cancel blood donation appointments because of work.
• Three counts of having to turn down Hanging Out With Friends time because of work.
• One count of ruining a shirt on a jagged metal bit at work.
• Two counts of ruining pants beyond the point of wearability (and for me that point means they are quite damaged.
• One count of me injuring my finger in such a way that blood came out from under the fingernail.
• One count of a long scratch on the back of my neck from the corner of a machine I was reaching under.
• One count of not having access to the Internet on my only day off during one week.
• One count of the twenty-four hour gas station I used to stop for juice when I had to walk from work apparently not being open twenty-four hours any more.
• One count of locking myself out of my apartment.
• One count of the truck I was in nearly being hit by a drunk driver (or if not drunk, just a very bad driver).
• At least three counts of papercuts (those are just the ones that occurred after I decided to keep a list of annoyances).
• One count of being a month with so many annoyances I decided to keep a list.

Now, I fully admit that the vast majority of these are quite minor and several were obviously much worse for other people than me, but the fact it was all condensed into one four-week span really made June 2010 a month that I will not miss in the least. It joins the year 2006 in Times PDR Mostly Didn’t Enjoy. But hey, it is all over now.

My belly button was totally bleeding last night. That was strange. A quick check on Google told me that it’s probably just scratched or irritated. Good to know my body still has surprises in store.

Also, can I say that I don’t really care for either the term “navel” or “belly button” and I don’t think either really captures the essence of the thing as a good name should. Maybe after work I’ll look up the proper medical name and start calling it that. It probably has something to do with “Umbilical” which is a step up no matter what.

I was thinking recently about the times I’ve been in the hospital. For my own benefit I am going to try to make a list of them. I’m going to go reverse-chronologically, because I’m working on my tachyon impression.

• About two years ago, I think (so 2006ish) I crushed my hand in a machine at work. Hours later the bleeding had not stopped and when I got to ER, I found out I’d lost a fingernail. Not a terribly long wait time. Some X-Rays and some poking and I got called a very good patient. It did take the convincing of like eleven people at work to get me to bother taking that trip. And even then I didn’t go straight from work. I went home to check my email and got a slice of pizza before I finally walked to the hospital.
• Around Summer 2001 I had what appeared to be blood in bodily functions that blood is not supposed to be a part of. It was my mother’s idea to get it checked out at the emergency room, plus I got to miss a day of work (I was a security guard then). So… this trip was essentially me getting probed in those certain regions. I remember making lots of jokes that the doctors and nurses either didn’t get or weren’t paying attention to. I don’t remember the wait being too long and the problem went away on its own immediately after that with me never actually getting an answer what caused it (though the doctor mentioned that some cereals have dye that can look like blood when it comes out…) More importantly I remember we decided to stop at KFC on the way home from the hospital and they were out of chicken. No fooling. Also when I called my employers to tell them I’d miss a day, they demanded I get a note from the doctor. They never came to get the note from me and I think I still have it around here somewhere (I keep it because like a week later Kip wrote his medical opinion of me, “Yer ah jackass!” on it).
• Another time, I think I was about sixteen, but don’t ask me to figure out what year that would have been, I was taking out the garbage on a snowy day and slipped in the ditch and twisted my ankle. I remember my brother asking me if I was okay and, being embarrassed I just told him to go inside. I literally crawled up the stairs to the house and eventually went to bed. I lived in the basement back then, so the next morning I again had to literally crawl up some stairs to get and my mother, seeing this, brought me to the hospital. I remember being impressed by the fact that when they saw me limping my way to the door with my mother’s help some orderlies greeted me with a wheelchair. I suppose that they do that stuff every day, though, so they know what they’re doing. The wait this time was really bad. Hours of sitting in that wheelchair and waiting. I got some X-rays but nothing was broken, so it was ice and not using the leg. Made sense.
• Junior High I got a weird rash one day. It was all over my legs. I don’t remember all that much of that particular trip, aside from the female doctor seeing my junk. I do remember that the rash was because of something which Sounded like “Hypo-purple-itis” and that made sense because the rash was purplish, but of course I don’t know what the thing actually was called.
• And once a very, very young PDR had some manner of dehydration and actually had to spend a couple nights in the hospital. It was over the holidays and, the way I remembered it growing up I missed Christmas. I have been assured though that I was actually home at Christmas and it was New Years Eve that I missed. I guess my child-mind equated not getting to play with all his (no doubt awesome) presents as essentially missing Christmas. The only important thing to come out of this is now, when I get a physical and they ask if I’ve ever had a stay in the hospital I have to answer about this vague thing instead of just saying that I’ve not.
• Also, my understanding is that I was born in a hospital. I’m taking other people’s word for that one, though because I sure don’t remember that. And you’d think you’d remember something that important.

So that’s that. The stuff of future medical textbooks.

Tachyons are the one that move backwards in time right? Am I making that up?

Sometimes I wake up with blood on my lips. There’s this one spot on my upper lip that, when it dries out overnight, sometimes it bleeds, I guess. It did thus last night and when I looked in the mirror there was this ring of dried blood on my mouth and I realized that, when the vampires inevitably come, the angry mob will probably descend on me pretty quickly. Especially when my nocturnal lifestyle is taken into account.

I remember this one time I woke up with my eyes all purple and swollen like I’d been punched in the face in my sleep. That was neat.

Anyway, I can’t really claim to have done much this weekend, but I guess that’s no real surprise. I’d love to get writing or something, but I have lost the motivation and won’t get it back until I’ve slain a dragon or something. In lieu of that, here’s a stupid drawing: