Working 12 Hours a Day for a Month Has Turned Me Into a Raging B

Wow, I am in a bad mood today! I feel like the frustration and stress that’s been simmering under my usually cheerful veneer has decided to expose itself today, approximately three hours before I head off on a week of vacation. Just this morning, I rolled my eyes twenty-two times, said “Are you kidding me?!” six times, got up from my desk in a huff twice, and felt the hot sting of boiling anger and tears once. It’s been pretty intense.

Ah, I was so close to getting through this week without combusting! I think it’s the combination of little sleep and a lot of work that is pushing me closer and closer to the edge. For a solid month, work has been back to its frenetic, breakneck pace, which on the one hand, I like! I’m much more productive with a full plate and it’s much more satisfying to slash away at a to-do list that has more important tasks on it than “Call Groupon for a refund on a painting class package I bought on a whim before realizing I am a horrible artist.”

But on the other hand, I’ve had no time outside of work to do anything but stress about what I’ll be doing the next day and how much sleep I can get in between. It’s been wearing a little thin. My apartment is a mess, my desk is a mess, my hair is a mess…thank God the weekend is near! This week has been crazy and never-ending, and I’m so close to heading out of the city–anything that’s getting in my path is going to get slapped!

A Sleepless Night

Well I’ve officially come to the conclusion that my neighbor is a drug addict. For the most part, I try not to make rash generalizations about people, but how else can I explain this guy? About once or twice a month, he will go on an hours-long rant through the night, filled with nonsensical ramblings peppered with obscenities. How a single person has enough anger and stamina built up to literally shout at the top of their lungs for six solid hours is a feat that can only be accomplished with the aid of some illegal substance! Either that or he’s possessed by a devil determined to ruin the Sunday evenings of a respectable apartment building in Upper Manhattan!

Unlike him, I have to get up in the morning, so pretty much the minute he started, I started banging on the wall that connects our apartments. If this had been the first time this had happened, maybe I would have exercised a little more haste, but I’ve been living here for a year and have been around the block with this whack job! Regardless, not my best plan. This only sent him further into rage, which started snowballing into slamming doors, him banging on the wall, and me leaping out of bed to dead-bolt my door. Crawling back under the covers, I popped in my headphones to drown out the noise, but four hours later, he was still in full psychopath mode, and I had gone through my entire “Please God, Let Me Sleep” playlist three times over!

Let me just explain how much I did not feel like dealing with this last night. I’ve been working like crazy the last few weeks and am tired enough as it is. Then yesterday, I spent the entire afternoon volunteering, using my minimal arm strength to heave branches and bags of leaves into the back of a truck. So what I was really looking forward to was a night of lethargy, not lunacy! And my night extended into the rest of my morning–after storming out of my apartment on my way to work, I yanked the front door open and the knob came off in my hand! Happy one year anniversary!

Well, So Much For That

Let’s all recall just a few short days ago, when I was riding on Cloud Nine after successfully booking a much-needed interview. Let us also recall how that same cloud transported me through a pleasant business trip, dropping me off on a pillowy puff of work contentedness. Well yesterday, that fluffy cloud became a two-ton rock, plummeting me to the deep depths of panic, irritation, and snippiness. My entire day involved damage control–begging, bitching, and battling my way through every task. By the end of the day, I had given up on working and settled on banging my head on my desk until I was escorted out and put in a cab!

From the start, the day was doomed. I woke up late, and walked into work at the exact time my boss was heading down the hall. BUSTED! Then, after settling at my desk, I got a phone call from my beloved interviewee, who informed me they were cancelling. WHAT? That sent off a two-hour flurry of phone calls attempting to convince them to stay on board. Between begging, getting pissed, and then begging some more, I got them to stay! RELIEF! But then I had to change their flights and travel arrangements! STRESSFUL! By 3 pm, I was already fantasizing about the cupcake I would be treating myself to after work…followed by a hefty glass of wine!

Unfortunately, relief has yet to come. Last night, after stepping in a puddle and getting stranded on the subway for an hour because of an incident at my stop, I buried myself under the covers to hide from imminent doom! At 9 pm, I called it a night and prayed that my dreams would take me back to the lovely cloud I had so recently been floating on. No such luck! This morning, I was awoken with the news that my interview never even got on the plane last night! Almost immediately, I felt a wave of panic wash over me. That was then followed by supreme annoyance and the desire to punch something.  I think I should forgo that cupcake and head straight for the sheet cake! Or maybe a boxing lesson will do the trick–I’ll pound that negativity out if it’s the last thing I do!

The Stars Are Rude

This week…needs to be over. I’m tired and ready to bask in the gloriousness of this amazing weather and indulge in a very large glass of wine! Some weeks are just like this, in that they drag and are filled with lots of emotions! I should have expected it though, after I read my horoscope earlier this week!

Usually, I don’t buy into that stuff, and I’ve never in my life explained a personality trait by saying “O, that’s because I’m an Aries.” I’ve never attempted to start a conversation by asking “What’s your sign?” Basically, horoscopes are meant to be read in spacey accents, with lots of oohs and aahs. When I was in high school, my sister and I used to read everyone’s horoscope from our teen magazines…my married father got lots of flirting advice on snagging the perfect “boy-toy” back in the day!

But the other day while chatting with my friend, she decided to share my horoscope with me, and it was the worst one I had ever read! Apparently, my week was destined to suck, because of my “swinging mood,” my tendency to “fly off the handle,” and the fact that I am “egocentric.” Then, to make it even worse, the creme de la creme:  “It looks like you’re going to end up alone since the stars have decided to run away. Bless them, they should be able to enjoy a much nicer week than in your company.” That was my actual horoscope! Uh, the stars are a bunch of rude jerks!

I’m not saying this week was bad because the stars didn’t align, but maybe I should be paying better attention to the cosmos! I have a few fun weekend things planned but don’t want to ruin them if my moon beams aren’t in balance! Ugh, I think I just need to take a deep breath and look forward to a nice weekend and a new week…and maybe also schedule an appointment with a sage!

MONDAY.

O Monday, you slay me.

This day did not begin on the right foot. I spent a lovely weekend in New Jersey, enjoying the great invention of air conditioning and getting slaughtered in tennis by my sister. I was at peace. I was tan. My hair looked nice. These are all things that would make me wake up on Monday morning and say, “Let’s do this, week!” But instead, I think we can all deduce what happened: NEW JERSEY TRANSIT RUINED MY VIBES. AND MY HAIR. …I’m still tan, so at least there’s that.

I had to wake up at 6:30 AM to make a bus that was LATE. Then I had to sit in a seat whose fan wasn’t working. Then my blackberry died. Then my ipod died. Then my SOUL died because just as quickly as we were motoring along the highway, we came to a complete stop…and stayed that way for a half hour. Then it was the slow, agonizing crawl through the roundabout towards the entrance of the tunnel. Then it was the claustrophobia-inducing idling inside the tunnel. And then it was the complete mayhem of getting off the bus into the crush of the ten billion other people making their way through Port Authority.

At this point, I needed to be at work in thirty minutes. Already experiencing the manic flash-backs from my commuting days, I had no time to go back to my apartment and mentally reset for my day. So to add to my already traumatic morning, I had to go into the Port Authority Bus Terminal bathroom to change my clothes and put on my makeup! Ew. Ew ew ew ew ew.

Then it was the mad-rush to work, which made me mad-sweaty, which meant my hair was mad-frizzy and I was just mad.  The only thing that alleviated my desire to mad-ly punch someone in the neck was that synchronized swimming is on today. Those ladies can kick!

A Breath of…Air

Finally, sweet relief! This was the first day in over a week I haven’t been slumped over my desk, drained from the heat. I managed to get through the New York heat wave alive, but was completely exhausted everyday! Not only was I barely sleeping, but my five-block walk to work zapped any left over energy I had, leaving me lethargic and sweaty. It’s been awesome and extremely attractive.

When I moved to New York last November, I conveniently forgot that summer around here is pretty sweltering. But looking back, how could I have blocked out such hellish humidity? When I first started working, I was commuting during the hottest part of the day. I was also broke, and didn’t want to waste my gas, so I used to ride to and from the parking lot sans AC! The only saving grace from that hellish experience was the frigid temps of my office and the constant tears to cool my cheeks! Then, last summer, I sublet an apartment during August and spent the month with permanently wind-blown hair from the box fan I put an inch from my head! Heck, even when I first moved, my broken radiator was churning out enough heat to keep me sweating through the coldest months of the year! How quickly we forget!

But none of these served as a learning lesson on how to beat the heat this time around. I neglected to buy an air conditioner when they were on sale, and my one little fan spun its three little blades until the thing was practically smoking! But I’ve been too exhausted to do anything but fill a Ziploc bag with ice and stick it down my back before bed, which invariably melts, pops, and soaks my bed. And I wonder why I’m always in such a bad mood in the mornings!

Fortunately, it’s cooled off considerably since last week, and even though my apartment is stuffy, I actually slept with a sheet over my body for the first time in two weeks! It was nice to put my makeup on without throwing my liner on the floor and running for the fan before the sweat droplets exposed themselves across my brow! Ah, city living.

Out of Sorts

The latter half of this week has been a bit of a slog. After taking the day off on Wednesday, I came back Thursday morning in a bad mood, mostly because of a bad hair day, but more because I thought it was Friday. Then, I apparently thought it was Monday, when I asked my coworker how her weekend was! Basically, I was out of it. My brain has just been moving at a snail’s pace, while my daily responsibilities are requiring it to pick it up a few notches!

Taking a mental health day in the middle of the week really screws up my vibes! All day long, it felt weird not to be in work, and then all day yesterday when I got back, it felt weird to be in work! Since yesterday, I’ve been counting the minutes and have been getting irritated at each new task added to my list. The growing to-dos, the never-ending lists, the slow dragging hours, the tragic, tragic hair–I am in a funk.

There is pretty much nothing worse than the Friday funk, especially when half of the office is off playing softball and I’m stuck here, typing and making calls. Then the other half of the office is preparing for their upcoming vacations, while I’m stuck here…typing and making more calls. Weekend, please save me before I chop bangs in my hair in the office bathroom and raid the snack closet in a fit of frustration!

Time For A Break!

I always know when I need a break from the city when I want to punch my hand through a wall, consistently, for ten hours.  This has not been an especially good week–I locked myself out of my apartment, my drunken psychopath neighbor returned from whatever psych ward he was at and was cursing and ranting until the early hours, and I haven’t been able to get a seat on the subway all week! The one saving grace is that I’ve been blow drying my hair in the morning, and it looks great. But is it enough to keep me from getting into an angry brawl before the day is over?

Usually, city life doesn’t bother me, but when I know I’m going to be leaving, even just for the weekend, everything seems exaggerated. Yesterday, I rode the subway home and a woman was holding onto the bar, her arm level with my nose. Every time the train would lurch, her arm would hit me in the face. Yes, this would always be annoying, but last night I was two seconds away from punching her in the neck! I settled on glaring at her so intensely I had crow’s-feet by the time I got off the train!

Then there’s my insane neighbor. I have never seen this man, but he makes sure that everyone within a thirty block radius can hear his senseless ranting when the mood strikes. After a half hour of incessant obscenities and offensive drivel, I started banging on my wall, shouting “SHUT UP” at the top of my lungs. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right? He either passed out or moved to another room, and my fury gave way to exhaustion and I slept like a rock!

And then there are the smokers, the slow walkers, the cell-phone addicts, the baby strollers–daily obstacles that, this week, seem to be hitting my last nerve. Of course, it will reach the climax tonight when I arrive at the hub of all misery, the headquarters for the world’s most annoying and oblivious people: The Port Authority Bus Terminal.  Thank God it’s Easter and Jesus is in a forgiving mood!

This Day Stinks

What. A. Day. I should never have gotten up this morning…or even went to bed last night! After coming home from a Superbowl party last night, I was so exhausted from the excitement of the GIANTS WINNING that I went right to bed. Well, not even ten minutes later, the drunken super of my apartment building started shouting obscenities at the top of his lungs, and began banging away downstairs, apparently attempting to fix the front door of our building, which doesn’t close all the way. May I remind you that it was midnight. Need I remind you also that he had THE ENTIRE WEEKEND to do this. He also has THE ENTIRE DAY. A door not closing all the way is not an emergency that needs to be taken care of in the middle of the night, with power tools no less!

Well, this went on until 3 in the morning. Around 2 am, I got out of bed and pounded on the inside of my door three times, in an attempt to send a message that he should SHUT UP. Well, it sent a message alright, one that sent him into even more of a drunken rage. I was extremely close to calling the police, but I guess I finally got used to the grating tone of his constant stream of chatter and fell asleep.

So this morning, I was naturally expecting the door downstairs to be painted in solid gold and to be hermetically sealed, but it was exactly the same! This sent me into my own internal rage, which of course has colored the rest of my day so far and has set off a slew of other Monday-morning blues. When I got into work this morning, my ID didn’t work, the printer started printing out important documents on fluorescent colored paper, and the coffee machine was once again broken. Is it Friday yet??

The Inferno

Boiling lava. The surface of the sun. The inside of a Hot Pocket.

What do these three things have in common, you may ask. Well, they are exactly the same temperature as my apartment right now. For the past week, I have boiled in the inferno that is my studio, my radiator churning out the heat with the fervor of the burning depths of hell. It is so uncomfortable, I’ve barely slept in three days. I take ice-cold showers before bed, sleep on top of the covers, and last night, started treating my heat stroke with ice packs strategically placed on my pressure points, a technique I learned as a lifeguard at a water park. When I worked there in the SUMMER.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying to cool the place down. Every window in my apartment is wide open, and I’ve called the landlord four times so far to get someone to come and fix it. The first time I called, he asked if I had tried to turn it off by twisting the valve. O, that would be a grand idea, if there was one! The only thing attached to the radiator is a pipe with a metal spigot, which is approximately 500 degrees. I know this because I touched it, and watched my hand immediately burst into flames.

Since last week, I’ve been getting empty promises from my landlord that someone would fix the valve, but each night, I return home to an apartment that is giving me a sunburn. O well, in a few days I’ll be back in New Jersey for the holidays, in the other extreme–my mom keeps the house so cold I can see my breath before I go to bed.  Whatever happened to room temperature?!?!