I just finished reading Aron Ralston's story in the latest Outside Magazine. This is the guy who was trapped for six days under a boulder and had to amputate his own arm before hiking through the desert for help. Anyway, the "harrowing detail" of the story is pretty gross (especially as I was mid-chicken salad), but I feel much better about the last six days of MY life when I compare it to his. It's all about perspective.

Basically the second job is kicking my ass. I'm making a hell of a lot of money, though, but the recovery time needed after back to back shifts is starting to increase. Not only do I have a pretty nasty cold, but my mind is starting to get a bit wonky. Last night I made myself a soothing cup of tea with milk and sugar to drink before bed. I had already sipped AND swallowed the first mouthful before realizing that I had added milk and SALT to my perfectly-steeped cup of tea. I was too disgusted to bother making another one.

Then there is the pancake incident of last Friday night. It was three am and I was starved after another hellish shift. I decided to make pancakes (not that I had a choice, all I had were pancakes) and went through the mouth-watering process of mixing the batter, flipping each pancake, buttering them, pouring real maple syrup on them, and pouring a nice icy cold glass of Diet Coke to drink. As I walked into the living room, Diet Coke in one hand, plate of pancakes in the other, I managed to trip over the dog gate, fall on my knee and chin, spill Diet Coke all over my coffee table, and watch as my beagles dove under the couch with my pancakes. I'm not sure if it was the pain in my knee or the fate of my pancakes that made me burst into tears.

So now this disgusting cold (along with the disgusting cough that I cannot suppress) has made me decided to try *again* to quit smoking. Between the jobs, the pancake-stealing beagles, this cold, and the cumulative exhaustion, I'm thinking it will be only tomorrow that I burst into tears for no reason whatsoever. We'll see how it goes.