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Location: Home.
Listening: "Cooling" by Tori Amos..

Well, May has begun with several discoveries and sudden changes in the environment at 1260.

First of all, I gave notice on Tuesday, when Jeff made an unscheduled appearance at the Long Beach teleport. I wasn't planning on doing this until this coming Friday, but he suddenly walked into my cubicle Tuesday morning and informed me that, due to problems in the department in Atlanta, Hitoshi and I would need to "cross-train" on the company accounting software and take on even more responsibilities outside of the enormity of our years-long current project. I realized then that I had no choice, and, a few hours later, stopped a departmental meeting cold by resigning. Jeff looked like he was going to cry. Hitoshi was stunned, but congratulatory when Jeff was out of earshot. They are currently interviewing candidates for my position, while Jeff is still in town. Six came in today, and we're scheduled to have several more in tomorrow. All of them are middle-aged women with extensive backgrounds in accounting. The situation is surreal and, along with the relief of knowing that my days at PAS are coming to a close, there is also a sense of sadness. I keep hoping that Hitoshi will be ok without me. I know he will be, but he has been the best boss I've ever had, and the idea of leaving him with this albatross of a project and a brand new assistant tugs at me unpleasantly. I've pledged to train the recruit as well as I possibly can, and I'll be looking for a small "farewell" present for Hitoshi. It's the least I feel that I can do and, as of March 24th, Mizu will be moving on.

Secondly, due to several recent developments, I have decided to stop drinking. I've realized that I've begun to rely on alcohol as a coping mechanism, and, as it's done in the past, it has begun to cause more problems than it "solves". So no more scotch or cabernet for quite a while. I'll be interested to see how this shapes up.

Lastly, I took Eliot to the vet today to investigate the nature of several sneezing fits that have been worrying me. I discovered that my sweet little boy rat is actually a sweet little girl rat, likely the runt of her litter, and very ill. She's showing signs of manifesting a particular respiratory disease that apparently usually lies dormant in rats, but can be brought out under extreme stress. Considering that it seems she was kept in a cage with her brothers, all of whom were considerably larger than she, I'm not really surprised at this. The vet, an "exotic" pets expert, examined her, prescribed a very strong antibiotic that I'm to administer one drop of twice a day for two weeks, and advised that, while her lungs and heart seem to be unaffected, the fact that she's so young and so small and has become ill already does not bode well. He feels that she can pull through this particular bout, but warned me that it would likely recur throughout her life and that that life would be cut even shorter than the average 3 years by this. He was very reassuring, but also very forthright that she needs to gain more weight or else she might be too fragile to survive for any considerable period. She eats like a champ, but also loves her wheel; I'm debating taking it out of her habitat for a little while. We'll see--I'm keeping my fingers crossed. He also said that this is likely the first time that she hasn't had to fight with the bigger rats for her food. Poor thing. No wonder she's so tiny. I brought her home, Peter and I played with her and he helped me give her her medication, and she's lazing around her cage now. I hope she'll be ok.

So yes, it's been a difficult week so far. I'm now going to change into pajamas, finish my ham and cheese sandwich from The Pizza Place, and watch a movie with my boy. Hopefully that and getting to bed earlier tonight will relax me a little more.