It's been forever since I updated. Shame on me. My only excuse is that I simply haven't found the willpower to write out a long, mostly unpleasant post that people won't really care about... but if ehzoterik can manage a post before I can, then I really feel ashamed, so here we go.

The past couple of months have been, to be blunt, miserable, stressful, and hellacious without exception.

To start with, my left ear has been ringing. Not constantly, but pretty much near-constantly. I've gone to the doctor, tried nasal steroids, even had a sinus CT scan done, and nothing. More and more, it looks like the answer is simply, "this happened for no good reason and has no treatable cause. Learn to live with it." The next step is seeing an ENT doctor, but the office I'm trying to make an appointment with is basically making that impossible. They refuse to schedule an appointment for February, despite the fact that I need to give my job my leave plans for that month now, and they demand a referral despite the fact that right on top of my freaking insurance card it says in bold letters 'NO REFERRAL NECESSARY.' Just... read this as pretty much a basis for how life goes for me. 'Shitty things happen for no reason which you can't do anything but suck up.'

The housemate is still out of a job, meaning I've been the sole money-earner for these past couple of months as well. It also means my stress level has skyrocketed just from the commute alone, since I can no longer carpool and take advantage of the HOV lanes. I've been restraining myself financially as much as possible, but I'm still faced with so much debt I can't ever foresee getting it paid off.

Speaking of work, that too has been going incredibly poorly. One of our competent workers left for a different job last month, and was replaced by a person who does, and I say this without hyperbole, no work. He sits and writes email all day. There would literally be no difference if he were replaced with a decorative rock garden, except the rock garden would have some Zen soothing qualities. Meanwhile, across the work aisle, I've coincidentally gotten the most largest and most punishing workloads of anybody in the unit, for no reason other than alleged coincidence. For example, the issue I am working on now will probably be 1800 pages. It will publish on Wednesday. Tuesday's issue will only be 800 pages. I'm thinking Wednesday's will be 1200, maximum, possibly much lower. The same thing happened last issue. Four issues ago, on December 28th, I got handed the largest issue since the publication of the Microsoft antitrust settlement.

This is fair and reasonable. Purely coincidence. I'm sure.

Game reports, I'm sure this is the only part of this anyone will care about... there have not been any game reports since the last one since there have not been any real GAMES since the last one until last Sunday. I'm working on the transcription, but my time to do so has been severely curtailed (see: no carpooling), so I will have it up when I have it up and not much before.

Honestly, I'm messed up as hell right now. Constant and unending stress has just fried me and disrupted my emotions and psychological balance very badly. But none of these problems is going to go away -- they're only going to get worse, in fact -- so all I can really do is tell myself to suck it up and stop whining. Obviously, this doesn't work so well.

Anyway, that's MY life for the past couple of months. I'm sure you could've gone a couple more without hearing me bitch.