Gi-Gi Roxx - The Ravings of a Lunatic

Fatigue and exhaustion is taking it's toll. My whole body aches beyond the point of tolerance. I slept for a solid 10 hours and if it weren't for my back screaming in pain, I'd go back for a few more hours. I may still yet nap today. I called in sick late last night. I hated to do it, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And since I know people I work with will read this, I will apologize for the inconvenience which my absence today has created. But with the absolute exhaustion I'm dealing with (as I know many of my coworkers are too) I just can't justify risking the lives of so many today. I'll not be spending this day with my family nor friends. I will certainly not be spending it in any form of actual merriment. I will be taking regularly scheduled doses of Tylenol, sitting to rest when my body screams for me to do so, using ice packs when and where needed. I will likely nap at least once, maybe even twice between bursts of minute activi

My life before becoming driving professional was one of quiet caution, thanks to bumps and cuts and bruises received doing things "unsafely". When I became an OTR truck driver and was properly "pumpkinized" in Green Bay, WI I adopted the mantra "Safety First and Always!" and held fast to all it stood for. I became ever more safety conscious, resulting in fewer bumps, cuts and bruises. I believe living this simple statement all day every day while I was out there on the road saved me many a headache and heartache. I had incidents here and there, a few of which were rookie mistakes and a few of which were a result of me getting temporarily complacent. But overall I'd say that "Safety First and Always" really saved my ass. Flash forward to today. I'm in an altogether different type of driving job, one where safety (to me) is of the utmost importance. I'm not only responsible for myself and the rest of the motoring public's safe

I was walking across the parking lot at work the other day when I impuslviely reached down to check the zipper on my pants. I realized at that moment that this is something I do EVERY day and something I don't even really realize I'm doing most of the time. It's not like I have a habit of leaving my fly down. I have a very strict sequence of events that I follow when getting dressed and in that sequence is "button, zip, buckle, stuff". The stuff part is actually "stuff 1, 2, 3" because my uniform pants have three pockets and I have to check each one to make sure they're where they are supposed to be. "Right , left and butt cheek" is how I say it in my head as I stuff my hands into each pocket in order. This is part of my morning routine, and sometimes my mid-day routine if I've changed out of my uniform for my split and have to redress for work a second time for the day. So checking my fly after exiting the car in the parking lot a

So today I went to the dentist for the first time in a period long enough that I don't want to admit it openly. The intention was a cleaning and check up and get setup with a new family dentist. But that's not all that I got the pleasure of today. No no. It was a full service visit, taking care of business as only dentists can do it. The cleaning part of my visit was a lot easier than I'd expected. I figured after the amount of time that had passed since my last professional cleaning it'd take a lot longer to scrape the gunk off. But it was quick and mostly painless thanks to the skilled hands of the hygienist and the fact that I've taken to brushing with an electric toothbrush and started flossing more frequently. Once the cleaning was done in came the dentist to look things over and assess the situation. I knew from my last dental exam "x" amount of years ago that I had two small cavities that needed tending to. So I expected them and considered

So I'd been posting my happy little heart out for all my friends and family to see on Facebook. I thought some of my posts were pretty clever. Some were downright awesome. But I kept wondering why only one friend was "liking" or commenting on them. Today I found out that it was because some how I'd managed to set my status updates to a custom setting where only that particular friend had the privilege of seeing what I posted. I fixed it and went thru and changed the viewablity of a majority of the posts so that my followers could catch up. Apparently this happened either on the 8th or 9th of this month so there has been nearly a week that has passed since my last public posting. And it was just today that a friend of mine sent me a message asking me if I was okay. I was confused by this because as I said I'd been posting my happy little heart out, multiple times a day every day. Of course now that I posted about what happened, folks on my friends list are al

Just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone celebrating the various seasonal holidays a merry time of it.

So last week at work I returned from my two day Thanksgiving break to find the day room smothered in Christmas decorations. There was one lone driver sitting in the day room when I arrived. I went to the dispatchers office, checked in and then made my way into the day room for a minute to get my things in order before heading out to the bus when I commented on the decorations. "Looks nice, but I wonder if they plan on adding any Hanukkah decorations?" The other driver looked up at me over the brim of his glasses, pulling his nose out of his newspaper long enough to say, "I never too you for a Jew, a Nazi maybe, but not a Jew." I was too shocked to come back with anything clever. All I said, after a long awkward pause was... "Who me? Really?" And then I exited the building. I really am still not sure how to take it. Compliment? Insult? or was he just trying to be funny? My husband thinks it was his way of just making a joke. I tend to think it's a

Ugh. I'm about to go off the deep end. My epic decision has stalled and is nearly dead in the water. Time for plan b... Which sucks. But whatever.

I am T minus 4 hours away from another night run. I need to take a nap but I'm not tired enough to sleep. I need to eat but my stomach is in knots. And I also need to shower... but honestly I don't really care how I smell when I have to deal with these idiots tonight. Plus, I just did something I wasn't sure I actually would do and I'm both nervous and excited about it. It's HUGE. Epic even. And while it's gonna cause quite a few waves, it'll be so worth it. I hope. BTW, if you know my secret please don't comment about it. When the time comes I want to be the bearer of such news. I love leaving folks hanging in suspense. :)

Seriously stressed out. I need a vacation but can't take one because of my job. I don't have any time to take off yet. I won't get any time until April. If I live that long. The stress is seriously killing me. I am not really cut out for this public service shit. I had a long night last night when I got short notice thrown into a night run. I was two hours into protection when I got the news that I was gonna have to do the night run. And that I had less than 15 minutes before it was due to start. I was hungry and angry from the get go, which isn't a good combination. I HATE night runs. I am not a night owl, I'm a morning person. I prefer to be in bed no later than 9 pm. Driving past that hour is a huge risk for me. I have terrible night vision, I have a terrible tendency to have "micro sleeps" strike after that hour and fatigue sets in heavy once I get past the 10:30 mark. I will be straight up when I say I'm not a safe driver after that

No, no I've not found a dead body in the river. Although, if I ever do I'm totally poking it with a stick. But I digress.... No, the title line is referring to the little annoying piece of crap floating around inside my eyeball that is making quite a nuisance of itself lately. Below is the best representation of what I "see" that I could find on the internet. Crazy isn't it? Unlike the photograph below, I usually only see one, it's in my right eye and it changes shape constantly. At one point earlier today it was shaped like one of those "remember" ribbons. At another point it was more like a knotted up shoe lace. It's pretty annoying to be moving along doing daily things like driving, walking, watching TV, playing Angry Birds....whatever... and this little stringy thing pops into view and gets all up in my business. It's distracting for one thing, and just plain annoying for another. I was driving to Huntington today to have lunch wit

I am a storyteller . There is not now nor will there ever have been 100% accuracy in my stories. For one thing I do not remember exact exchanges so quotations are generalized at best. And for another thing, I have to embellish for entertainments sake. :)

"Hey bus driver what's your name?" he asks. "Bus Driver." I say with a polite smile on my face. "Really a bus driver named Bus Driver?" he asks as seriously as he could. "Yep." I reply continuing to smile. "No really sweetie what's your name?" he pushed. "I told ya, first name Bus, last name Driver." I chuckled. ....and he continued the conversation by trying to guess my name for 6 miles worth of driving. He got close once with "Michelle", my middle name... but no cigar. Same guy referencing another time another place: "I know you young lady." "I dunno, you sure?" "Yeah I think you've drove another bus I've been on before." "Oh, well, that's possible, I'm all over the place." "Yeah I remember now, you picked me up at the dirty book store down in Jefferson... CuhhhRAaaaaaZY Mitches!" "Oh yeah now I remember, you were visiting your "g

Yesterday I had an incident with a passenger at work that took every ounce of my energy to get through. The situation, while irritating and day-ruining, could have been MUCH worse had I not had a particularly special passenger on board. But the ridiculousness of the situation just zapped the life right out of me. And it only took about 3 minutes from start to finish for the ordeal to play out. I was running a route for a regular driver who had taken vacation for the week. Of course, being that it was Monday I was the first "fill-in" driver to cart around the regular riders on the route. Things were going pretty well I thought even though I was running fairly late because of a few snags along the way. I had a lady get on the bus headed downriver to one of the high schools on the route. She was a little loud with her conversations with other passengers, enough so that I wished she'd utilize an "inside voice". I never said anything, I rarely do unless someo

I'm itching to be crafty. Anyone out there have any cute crafty ideas that don't require sewing? I'm open to anything involving hot glue, regular glue, paint, glitter (oooh yeah glitter!), embellishments of any sort.... etc. I just can't sew and prefer not to try to learn on the fly. I was thinking about getting into scrap-booking but man that's an EXPENSIVE hobby. But I want to do something to better utilize my time than watching TV every spare minute.

I make a choice to pursue something and I get nowhere. Today I made a few phone calls but all I got were voice mail inbox's and my hopes up. I really had hoped to speak to a real live human regarding a few things today but alas, it wasn't in the stars. So I will have to wait for returned phone calls, which of course will probably lead to a game of phone tag since I am almost always working and can't answer the phone when someone finally calls me back. I might get lucky tomorrow and be able to accept a return call depending on what happens in the morning at work. I am not scheduled to work a run but instead will be required to suit up and sit at the garage for three hours while on "protection". Basically the duty of protection is bullcrap, but I get paid for it so I shouldn't bitch. I am supposed to be there to be available should someone not show up for their shift on time or at all or if they call in at the last minute. Then I'm a already there and

I was just browsing pictures over at Yahoo! OMG and saw a few celebrities that I'd never seen before. I'd heard about them, most of them musicians whom I've heard on the airwaves for ages. But had never actually seen them. I hate it when I picture someone looking a certain way and then when I finally see them I get deflated with disappointment because they are sooooo not what I expected. One of them today was David Guetta. Did NOT expect him to be a 40+ guy who looks like a rocker wanna-be. Of course I also spotted a dude in a trio group that looks eerily like a friend I've known since childhood. And while I'm not gonna point out which one of the group Thirty Seconds to Mars it is that looks like that friend, those of you who have been in my life since childhood will probably know which one it is and just who he looks like. And I'm not gonna bore you with a picture of Justin Bieber but I AM gonna say that he bears a striking resemblance to a girl I knew in

I had received my monthly freebie code from RedBox via text message on Monday. So after work I stopped by the closest kiosk to choose my free rental. I didn't know that Bridesmaids was out on DVD, primarily because I don't keep up with that sort of thing. But when I saw it on the list of available movies I selected it and proceeded to type in my promo code. I was annoyed when I tried twice to enter the code and have it rejected each time. Still not sure what that was all about but I figured that since I'd made the effort to stop by the Box to rent a movie I may as well rent it whether it was free or not. I didn't get to watch the movie until the next day because by the time I got home I had to get to bed so I could wake up for a 4 am run at work. And when I did sit down to watch it I only got to watch about 80% of it before I had to go back to work. But even at that point I was highly unimpressed with it. There were only a few moments where I actually LOL'd.

I seriously love this movie. I needed some background noise so I turned on my Wii and tuned in to Netflix and there it was, staring at me in my "recommended" list. So of course I figured why not. I remember the first time I ever watched this movie. It was all the rage. Everyone said it was the musical of the year, maybe the century. My ex-husband and I had just PCS'd to Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas and were staying in temporary housing. As we explored the base we found the movie rental section at the "shoppette" and decided to rent a couple movies. He picked one and I picked one, which was usually how we did it. I can't honestly recall his choice, but I remember clearly deciding to rent Moulin Rouge. Of course we also had a thing where he would shuffle the movies behind his back, one in each hand and I'd pick "left" or "right" and that was the movie we'd watch first. That evening Moulin Rouge was the first to be pla

Forget whack-a-mole. I prefer to play whack-a-deer. Yup, killed myself a deer this morning. Dumb buck. I had two passengers who were neither bothered by or impressed with my deer killing skills. I'd seen it coming, I knew it wasn't gonna get out of the road in time. I slowed down from 55 MPH to probably around 40 MPH by the time I made impact. After the deer and the front of the bus met for the first and last time I found a safe place to pull off the road and inspect the bus for damage. All I found was a little blood splatter but otherwise, the bus was unharmed. I called my dispatcher to alert him to my plight. He asked me to verify that there was no damage and to get a "courtesy card" from the passengers just for the "record" of it. And then he told me to keep on route if all else was okay. The two passengers I had filled out the cards I offered them, kindly. And I continued on my merry way. The passenger sitting closest to the front wanted to talk

I'm going thru a bit of a crisis. I'm being pulled in different directions. An internal struggle waging full on war, one desire pitted against another, being flanked and attacked from all sides by yet more desires. Oh why can't we just have it all?! Maybe it's just the changing of the seasons, personal stresses, creating these waves of insanity. I'll give it a few days, maybe a couple weeks to see how the tides of war turn. But for now, I'm a woman on edge.

Today, amid lingering ickyness from a stomach bug that struck me hard yesterday, I forced myself out and about for at least a part of the day. I spent the morning making a stop at the local urgent care to get a confirmation on the virus I was dealing with and a doctors excuse for having had to miss work thanks to it. After that I went to see my step mom for a clean-up cut and color date. She is a miracle worker and managed to cut my hair into an even cuter 'do, which I will show off when the puffy dark sickly circles under my eyes have disappeared and I can photograph myself without scaring off my readers. She also gave me a good coloring that evens things out and makes me look AB FAB! After that I came home for rest and relaxing, as that little bit of doing got me wore plum out. I cat napped and watched some television and ate a small bowl of plain cooked macaroni, which didn't settle well and reminded me that I'd spent most of my day yesterday running between bed and b

So I went to the mall this past Saturday to get my hair done. I was looking for something like the shaggy sexy do on Winona Ryder in the picture above. But I ended up with the hairstyle below. This picture was taken day one after I got it cut and while I managed to make it look kind of cute, but wasn't certain I liked it. After 5 days, I've decided I hate it. I'm going today to get it fixed. And here is the new and improved Gi-Gi Roxx. :) Soooo much better!

I was making my way around my route this morning when I picked up a young girl waiting with her mother at a bus stop. She was somewhere between the age of 12-15. It's hard to tell these days, what with all the hormones and such, just how old a youngster is. But since she was headed to the middle school across town it's safe to assume she was within that age range. Her mother bid her farewell, instructing her not to get off the bus until she gets to school. At first I took this to mean that she had trouble with the girl skipping school. But as the bus ride progressed I realized it was because of another reason. The girl obviously had some sort of social/mental deficiency that became quite noticeable as the bus put distance between the girl and her mother. The girl started "rocking" in her seat, at first slowly and subtly but as more people boarded the bus it became more fast paced and pronounced. I can only assume she had some sort of anxiety building within he

So I've got a lot to say today. I would have put all of these tales into one post but where would the fun be in that? Exactly. I was planning my grocery shopping for the week, putting items into the handy iPhone app I downloaded for keeping track of shopping lists. I was opening and closing the fridge, the cabinets, and scanning what shelves we use to store food stuffs trying to get a good idea of what we needed versus what I was just gonna get anyway. I was planning a menu item that I didn't want to buy stuff for that I already, too, so the double and triple checking was essential for my "budget". *as if I actually keep a budget, I just try not to buy stuff I've already got like I did last time around wherein we ended up with TWO 18 packs of eggs. So I was making my list and checking it twice. I asked the husband what he wanted or needed. I inputted the items into the app as he listed them. I then remembered that there were these delicious little treats my

The other day my husband and I were out and about running errands during one of my split shift breaks. We headed downtown to pay our City fees. On the way out of the City office I noticed something in the vending machine across the hall from the door we had just exited. There was a bag of Reese's Pieces that had gotten stuck mid-vend. My mind instantly revved up with excitement. "Honey, give me a dollar and a quarter." "No." "Please?!" "Why?" "See that bag of Reese's Pieces? If I put the money in and select that same thing, we'll get a free bag!" "No, you won't. C'mon let's go." "But puuuulllleeezze! I just know we'll get that bag and the one behind it. For only a buck twenty-five! C'mon, pretty please? It's only a dollar twenty-five honey. I know you got it." "You're insane." "Pretty please. (batting eye lashes and putting on pouty face) I really wanna s

So as you can see I've changed it up a bit here on the ol' bloggy. Actually what I've done with the title and overall theme of the blog is go right back to where I started. I had a blog over on what used to be known as "Yahoo! 360", what seems like many moons ago. I called it simply "The Ravings of a Lunatic". I was an office jockey at the time and had a lot of time on my hands and even more things on my mind. When I stepped into blogging it was more about my day to day insanity at the office and at home. I incorporated some of what was happening in the celebrity world from time to time. But overall it was an outlet for my overflowing brain waves. When I made the big move from desk driver to truck driver I decided to start blogging about my experiences in that new arena, which took my blogging in a whole new direction. I was still blogging about my crazy life but it was more centered around the topic of my training and subsequent life as an over-t

My husband and I were discussing my recent adventures at work last night. I was telling him about the girl that talked my ear off the other day so much so that I resorted to the following: Girl: My family has a lot of fun traditions for Christmas. My sister and I sneak down early on Christmas morning and empty our stockings. We have lunch at our place then go to grandma's house and have dinner and open presents, then we go to Uncle Jimmy's and have dessert and open presents. Then we go home and open our own presents, most people do it in the morning at their own house I suppose, but we like to wait until night time. It's our tradition I guess you could say....what's your family traditions? Me: I'm Jewish. Girl: Oh.... (crickets.... pure silence for the rest of the ride) I am not Jewish. And I mean no foul to the Jewish people. I have plenty of friends who are Jewish. I just didn't want to hear her voice any more and couldn't think of a truly polit

I'm considering taking the blog in a new direction. Just letting you know in advance. Thanks, Gi-Gi Roxx

It went from a pleasant mid-to-upper 70's to lower 40's in about 24 hours and I'm not quite sure I like it. I am sitting here right now in a sweatshirt, sweatpants and praying that my laptop warms up soon so my legs will get a little warmer. If only I had knitted that little tiny sweater to keep my nose warm. I know I need to get washed up and head out to run a few errands before my night run tonite. But I just haven't mustered up any motivation. It took me 20 minutes to decide to crawl out from under my super warm comforter this morning. And when I did, I wasn't happy about the decision to do so. So now I have to decide to get into a hot shower... which ends by getting out into a cold bathroom sopping wet. Not sure I'm game yet. I do need to get to the bank though. Finally earned myself a full paycheck and I really need to get it deposited. It's good to be off of the short-term disability which was only half pay. And I need to return to the grocery

I was released to return to work this past Monday. But since it was a holiday weekend I ended up not getting to work until Wednesday, since Tuesday is one of my regularly scheduled days off. I was so nervous as I mentioned in my previous post, about going back to work. But I was all worked up over nothing. The first day back I ended up with a run that was cake. I made two trips out and back in the morning then had nearly four hours off before I had to go back to work and make two more trips out and back. I started around 7 am and was off shortly after 7pm. And still had time to run errands and goof off in the middle of the day. It was nice to be back! On Wednesday I pulled a morning tripper which is a short piece of work that is considered kind of a supplemental run. The route was one of the ones I had trouble with when I finally ran it solo for the first time a few months ago. But it's cake now. And so I had a nice easy morning of it for my second day back. When I got bac

So I've always had beef with censorship in general. I do it myself from time to time, putting asterisk's in the place of vowels in "dirty" words here on my blog. I do it, however, because otherwise I'd need to add an "over 18" protector to my page and I really don't want to do that. Sure the word is still pretty much there and coherent but at least I'm not truly "spelling it out". Aside from that, I rarely if ever censor myself. I'm a good girl with a bad mouth and there's not a single bit of shame in my body because of it. I've been told that I cuss like a sailor, that I'm "rude crude and socially unacceptable", and that I should reconsider having such a potty mouth. But honestly, I don't care. I will refrain from cursing around the elderly and people who have had the courage to ask me to please not swear in their presence. Although, occasionally dirty words still slip past my lips, as is just simpl

I'm super anxious about going back to work tomorrow. Straight up scared about it. I know I haven't forgotten how to drive a bus or collect fare or deal with rowdy passengers. I know I'll still fit in my uniform (actually I'll probably need it taken in a bit) and my shoes haven't grown roots by the back door. But I'm anxious nonetheless. It's almost like it's my first day solo all over again. I'm fortunate, however, that my first run back to work is a fairly easy run with a nice long split during which I'm sure I'll be having to nap. I am excited to finally be earning a full wage again. I'll be ever grateful that the company has allowed me to draw a half salary under a "short term disability" plan, even as a new driver, while I've been off recovering from my gallbladder surgery. The money has really helped out. But getting back up to my normal pay is certainly attractive. Sure, I'll miss my lazy days sitting aroun

Well the appointment went well. My stitches were removed and the surgeon told me that pathology said my gallbladder had been "grossly inflamed" but there were no stones to speak of. Which is good but kinda neither here nor there now that that bastard is out of my body. She told me she felt I was healing up well and to just keep taking it easy with lifting and such until I feel that my muscles can handle it. I am released to return to work next week. I'm really nervous about going back actually. I know I can do the sit and drive part, with only mild discomfort. But there are a few physical demands I'm afraid of causing a problem. One being the securement of wheelchairs (which is very physical and requires me to contort and manipulate my body in ways that might prove painful) and the other being the demanding hours I'll be working. Of course I'm also quite worried about dietary and digestive changes affecting my ability to drive uninterrupted by th

Today I meet with my surgeon for a follow-up appointment. I'm not really too concerned about the visit. I'm hoping she snips out these stitches and maybe tells me what ended up being wrong with my gallbladder. Surely pathology has had time to run all their tests on it. I'm healing up well and feeling better each day. But I'm still having some muscular pain on my right side, probably from where they punctured through them to remove the gallbladder. I removed all of my bandaging late last week so I could let the wounds (man I hate that word) get some fresh air and get cleaned. I know the doc said to let the Steri-Strips fall off on their own but I couldn't wait. They were looking grimy and I was more afraid they'd cause me to get an infection. Speaking of which, the thrush is completely cleared up and I couldn't be happier. That was just about as unpleasant as the surgery itself. Since I've been off work and sitting around healing a lot

So yeah I apparently missed all the action while on my way to my surgeons office today. Thanks to the fabulous shocks on my Versa I didn't even feel the slightest tremor that occurred during the 5.8 earthquake that hit earlier. People all over the state and eastern seaboard, friends of mine even, felt it and were posting about it on Facebook. I felt left out. While everyone else was freaking out over the minor earthquake I was busy dealing with medical crap. First I had to go to MedExpress to have my throat checked out. I was pretty sure I knew what was wrong but I needed confirmation and a doctor to write the scripts necessary to resolve the issue. It's kind of a gross one for me. At first I thought maybe I was getting something like a strep or staph throat infection. Which would have been really bad especially having just had surgery. Any infection could potentially cause big problems. But after I did some research I wasn't certain that it was that kind of