Next Mood Swing: 5 minutes.

Welcome to Menopause World!

I've read the brochures, and they are full of shit. Hot flashes? Naah. Weight gain - I think business lunches are as much to blame as the Pause of the Meno, but it's getting under control. Mood swings? Ahhh, there I identify, sort of. But the brochures from the Menopause World Tour Group make it sound so soft and sad and girly. We are supposed to weep. Be Depressed. Be All Soft and Girly. Apparently I'm flunking Menopause 101. Because I don't want to burst into tears every time someone is stupid and nasty to me. I want to whip out a sword and lop their fucking heads off, nice and clean, and then laugh, really hard, and move on. But I'm pretty sure HR would notice. So I suck it in, respond with crisp professionalism, and fantasize about the sword.

My job. It's a love-hate relationship. It's a roller coaster, and I'm already on a hormonal coaster. Yesterday was not a good day. There should be a law that two women in their late 40s should not work together, no matter how much they like each other. Because we do things like this:

T calls: "We've got a conference call at 10. Do you know what it's about?"
Me: "I have no idea. I was added at the last minute."
T: "Who scheduled it?"
Me: "Hell, I thought YOU did!"

Then we went off on a tangent wherein she sort of berated me for not being prepared to run a conference call I didn't schedule and didn't even have a fucking idea why I was involved. (She did apologize very sincerely and with true humility later. She's not a bad egg.) But Jesus, Mary and Joseph - my day went downhill from there.

Conference call scheduled by the voices in someone's head. (We think it was outside counsel, but somehow the purpose of the call was distorted between lawyer and calendar.)

Seinfeldian conversation with the kind of cutting edge only women can generate about said call.

Only the thought of my mortgage payment kept me from walking out in frustration.
We did make up afterward, I totally identify with her stress and frustration and I hold no grudge, but seriously, this is why I need to work for myself. I just don't have it in me to do this stuff anymore.

Got the RE CD working, sort of - I can access the coursework. I can't upload anything, and the problem has been Escalated, in Tech Support Lingo, which means someone in Bombay is now reading an email from someone in Michigan or wherever, and muttering "What the fuck?" in an adorable lilting accent.

RE class. License. Save money to line escape pod for soft landing on the sales side, because I want to wear cute little suits and walk actual people through buying houses. I still like the business but I'm tired of the land side.

In other news:

Working on yet another linen washcloth. I'm sorry, it's all I have the brainpower for these days.

I started cleaning my bedroom on Sunday. It's Wednesday morning and it still looks like it was ransacked by really sloppy thieves. My ADD kicked in, I started doing other things, and then I got tired and I stopped.

Girl has a wicked head cold. Half the people in my life have wicked head colds. My throat hurts and my sinuses feel all crawly. And I have a long, tortured meeting today.