Think This Will Keep Them From Stealing My Mug?

For the second time, someone took my frigging mug that I keep in the cabinet at work. Arg. Irritating. Anyway, I got it back and have now labeled it:

In case you can't read it, it says "Tena's Mug --->Not Yours, Asshole<----"

Maybe that will work. It totally skeeves me out that someone else is using my stuff. Eeech. The mug is now residing in my desk (where I'm not supposed to keep things like that) rather than on the shelf in the breakroom, where I would not have thought I'd have a problem, but apparently the people that work here lack manners.

Immaturity

Can we please act our age now? Thanks.

So. Very. Unmotivated.

I am sitting here, trying to make myself work, but really not feeling it. I'm just so tired and starting to feel melancholy. The urge to just get up and go home is ever increasing but I can't do that. I just want to go home and clean and do homey productive things. I feel like if I really want to stay at home, I should do something about it to make that happen, but what? It's not like we have money we can just start squirreling away. I think I just need to get up and stretch and walk around a bit, so I am going to go walk the stairs down and up once (the lab is on the 6th floor, so it's a little bit of a hike but people rarely use the stairs, so it will be quiet). Also, I hate C's job. It makes my life more complicated when I have to schedule around it, and then can't find a babysitter. Ugh.
***
Walking around was nice. I am just not in the most upbeat mood today, perhaps even slightly depressed. But not "real" depressed, just like...well, about a 6 our of 10 with 1 being "in the depths of despair" and 10 being super happy. I just...well, honestly? I am being stupid and obsessing over my coworkers. I know everyone says "don't let it bother you" but that's really a very difficult thing to do. It hurts to be ignored, even by people you don't especially care for. They haven't told me about lunch once in the last week, at least, and they go without me. I am trying very hard to embrace that time as my own time, to read, or listen in peace to my iPod, et cetera, but it is very hard to push the little niggling hurt aside. I don't like being left out. I don't like being ignored. I mean for God's sake, none of them have even TALKED to me today (well, that's not true, they did tell me when I had a phone call, and the new tech said "Good morning"). I don't expect much, but acknowledgement would be nice. I am feeling so lonely, and I know that partially I have generated my own little seclusion bubble. I am so desperate for connection to another woman, but I just don't know what to do about it.

I don't even like my coworkers that much. We're just in such drastically different places in our lives. The other techs don't have families of their own, and two of the postdocs have families, but their positions seem to create a natural separation. The Chinese postdoc is a very sweet woman, and her daughter Sophia actually is only a few weeks younger than J (I joke that they'll marry someday), and we talk sometimes, but it really isn't the same as a genuine friendship.

I miss my old lab. I really, really do. I had Susan and Paige and Jule, and we were all friends, regardless of our "status" in the lab. There was no drama. We'd go out to happy hour on Fridays, we'd go out to lunch together or even just eat together nearly every day. The guys in the lab were great, and everyone got along. Even the boss man would host a Christmas party and join us in our forays. People's birthdays were celebrated by someone bringing a cake, and I usually made the cake unless it was my own birthday. I miss the comraderie. Paige and I once took a cat she'd found and a chihuahua I'd found to a shelter, just before Christmas of 2006. Paige cried when we had to leave the cat. The chihuahua came back home with me because he was so old I wanted to take care of him til his family could get him, rather than have him stuck in a shelter all alone. We called him Lucky and MacGuyver didn't have a clue what to do with him, since he was so small. I think the dippy beagle was actually more afraid of Lucky than Lucky was of him, size difference be damned. Lucky went back to his family, an elderly man, a few days after we found him.

I went to a movie once with the other women in that lab, it was "Thank You for Smoking" and we had a great time. I seem to think we did happy hour before this because I remember being somewhat tipsy. I miss girlfriends. Jule has 2 kids, she would have been such a comfort to have around during my own pregnancy. And Margaret, and Helena, and Cristy. I miss them, too. *sigh*

This is so pathetic. I really should be working. It's really hard to work when you feel like this though- no motivation. Facebook helps, I suppose, but that's not "real" interaction. It vaguely keeps me in touch with people, but only if those people check it, and use it to keep in touch with me, too.

I did have a fabulous time at book club the other night. We read a silly book, and probably talked about it for 10 minutes, total, but it was so nice just to have some girl time. The other ladies knew each other already, so I was the "new kid" but it was still really wonderful. I am absolutely going back, even if it is far away (30 minutes from my house).

That was long and rambley, but there you have it. I'm going to go count cells now. Get away from this damn glowing box for a few minutes.

Stupid Stupidheads

So, apparently just going to lunch without letting me know at all isn't enough any more. Now, I can be sitting 10 feet away, and if I get a phone call, nobody bothers to see if I'm in the lab, they just assume I'm not. Um, what? This has happened at least 3 or 4 times now, and I am only willing to believe that one of them was an accident. Am I really the only person who actually LOOKS for the one getting a phone call?

I Hate My Coworkers Sometimes

I hate my coworkers sometimes. I'm not sure I've made that clear enough here, but sometimes they really piss me off.

Idiots

I had to send a sample to a central processing center in Kansas, because I have to prove to the company that I am trained and know how to process the samples for their studies. I sent this sample, on 5 kg of dry ice, on Monday. It arrived in Kansas, and they promptly forwarded it to...Quebec, Canada. Why? Because they are stupid and do not read the shipping labels addressed to them. Now I am trying to track down the person who called me from the pharmaceutical company in Quebec (she didn't give me her contact information, and I didn't catch her name when I spoke to her) and tell her to throw away the sample, not ship it back to us. Ugh. What a pain in the ass. This study is SO not worth it. But that's why they pay me the big bucks (as my dad would say).

I do NOT need this stress right now. My meds have been adjusted to 75mg sertraline instead of 50 (yay, I hope). I am in the process of finding a psychiatrist (since my midwives have about the same amount of expertise as a GP, so they can't do much more for me) and waiting to hear back from my insurance about what they cover regarding mental health care,. I know it will be a $40 copay, but I don't know how many times I have to make the copay, etc. It ain't gonna happen if I have to make a $40 copay twice a month or something, we just can't afford it right now. We actually can't afford anything right now, we already overdrew our checking account with our mortgage payment and we're maxed out on one credit card. We're desperately trying not to use the other cards, since we're trying to get rid of our debt. We actually had PB &J for dinner last night. When I called the bank Tuesday to find out if they could/would lower the rate on one card, they pretty much told me that they can't do anything, and that nobody will help us until we've defaulted on our payments. Nice. So, all you people out there in our shoes, where you know you're heading toward financial trouble, just keep on truckin because no one will help til you're already totally screwed. Awesome.