Joe Bot

My dad (who I'm never supposed to mention in my blog EVER) e-mailed me earlier with congratulations on Joe passing and asked if I'd come down off the ceiling yet. It's a good question. See, I went to work today untouchable. And by god, I must have willed it that way because Admissions (where I work on the weekends) had NO patients ALL DAY. Of course I had to go to the unit and work on an assessment for someone who had gotten chased away by this patient in question the previous day. But I had no problems. Well, except that she was delusional about another patient being her daughter and stealing her glasses, as well as that she wanted to put "2010" in pink crayon on all my paperwork. Still, I didn't get chased or hit or even swung at, which is an added bonus with my tetanus arm. (When does this awesome dull ache finally end?) Yay.

I did come down a bit from my Joe high earlier when I looked at how disgusting my house was and realized I may have family coming in for Joe's graduation in a few weeks. The house looked like I was slowly giving up, so I spent several hours reversing that. Cleaning aside, since all the family have now been here and have seen where I am in the "move-in" process, I need to hang some stuff on the walls. I don't want them to think I've gotten complacent in my decorating (though I have) and just quit (thought I did). We'll see how much I get done, especially on a tight budget. Man, the student loans stop here. July is it. I'll take that over knick knacks and wall crap. However, I really honestly think I'm going to hang portraits of the dogs. You know a little artsy joke. It's gonna be badass.

Where I come off the ground and start to float again is when I think of my conversation with Joe. We got to talk for 40 minutes (holy shit) because they were supposed to be in bed and no one else was at the phones. He said he'd fallen asleep and no one had woken him up to tell him the phones were open, so by god he got a buddy and went after hours. Made me damn nervous, but I guess it was okay. He told me about all his ailments and injuries, as well as his narcolepsy - falling down while rucking because he fell asleep mid-march. Also, he said a lot of the guys had been hallucinating about food, but he'd seen one guy dancing with a tree. Food I understand because you're hungry and you miss it, but dancing? Ahh. I told him about my bipolar tendencies - loving him and missing him and then hating him and cussing him while I mowed the lawn. The boy never missed a beat and immediately said that he couldn't wait to get home to mow the lawn, and he even told me that what I'm doing (me, not him) is so hard. I told him the same about his stuff. I also apologized for threatening to put my foot in his ass in one of the letters, to which he snickered. It just made me so happy that this guy knows it's tough for me too and though battered and exhausted, could still empathize with his wife. He also said I was the best wife ever RE my two care packages. I apparently crushed the other wives. Yeah, Joey and I are pretty much meant to be together. I take care of him, and he takes my shit. :-)