Work and Hair Update

One Day at a Time

My lower back is killing me. Probably a pulled muscle. The pain came on suddenly when I was at work early this morning. I wasn’t doing anything to pull it, but I’m still wondering if it has anything to do with my work practices. I’ve thought to myself things would catch up with me eventually . . . all the heavy lifting, bending, twisting, contorting. Maybe I pulled something trying to lift that heavy piece of furniture for a customer yesterday. Not sure why it took 24 hours to start hurting though, and it came on suddenly. Strange, I haven’t run in a while, and I’ve been very inconsistent with running lately, yet my first thought after the pain set in was, "I don’t think I could run right now if I wanted to." In fact, by the end of the day I could barely walk. This could be depressing if I allow it. But I’m going to take it one day at a time. Took some Advil, and put some Icy Hot on it. My range of motion is only limited by the pain and I didn’t hear anything pop or snap when the pain started, so hopefully those are good signs it’s not a spinal injury, just a pulled muscle. Going to have to go easy at work. If someone needs me to help lift anything or bend over the next few days for something at work, I’m just going to have to get help because I am not willing to risk further injury. I hope it goes away. If not, I’ll see a doctor by week’s end as I have some time off later this week. I can bend forward to touch my toes no problem no pain. It’s bending backward that hurts like hell, or standing upright for long periods of time.

I’ve realized lately that I’ve more than reached my goal for hair length. By most anyone’s standards my hair is now quite long. At least 12 inches, and still growing. Putting it back in a tie is very simple now and that’s usually how I wear it at work. I think it looks decent that way. I do wish I could do more about the frizz though. And these humid summer days coming up will not help it. The thing about hair is, there are always hairs in various lengths/stages of growth, and that’s what causes the frizz problem on the top of my head. The longest strands are over twelve inches long, which gives a nice illusion that all the hairs are of similar length, but this is never truly the case. Since my hair is very kinky/curly, the shorter curly hairs coming in on top give the appearance of frizz, especially close to the part. Certain hair products can smooth these out, but the longer my hair is exposed to heat and humidity throughout the day, the more the frizz returns. I’ve always used some kind of leave-in conditioner to try and smooth out the frizz. These products are often oil based and I used to have a problem with these products causing acne on my forehead. But ever since I’ve been washing my face with anti-bacterial Dial soap, I have had no acne problems. My sister has hair about the same length as mine and when she was at home last week I asked her for hair advice. She always has nice hair, no frizz. She uses mousse and suggested I give it a try. I might do so. The reason I haven’t is the same reason I don’t use hairspray. Mousse and hairspray tend to have similar effect . . . they add "hold" to the style, effectively matting the hair together. I hate that. I don’t want stiff hair. I like to be able to have it free, run my fingers through it, etc. This is why I use conditioners and oils instead of mousse or hairspray. But I may give mousse a try. Perhaps if I just don’t use too much, it will work.

Hit a bird on my way to work this morning. It just flew right into my car, bam, hit the grill and got sucked under the car. No damage to the car. I couldn’t help but think that if I had been at that spot one second earlier or later, I would not have killed that poor bird. I’m not a bleeding heart. It’s just a bird. Not beating myself up over it. It’s what the bird symbolized for me that got me thinking negative, not the actual bird itself. Nature is cruel. Life is cruel. It’s random. Shit happens. A bird dies because I was randomly in that spot at that moment. That’s life. Matters of life and death seem random. Cold. Heartless. If that’s how our lives are, then we truly have no hope at all. I know there is hope. There has to be. I am a Christian. There’s hope in Christ. Spiritual hope. But I can’t help but question my faith when I see something like that. And it’s silly. My dad’s like, "it’s just a bird, why does it have to symbolize anything for you?" This just shows you how negative my thinking tends to be. It’s negative self talk . . . as if that bird had anything to do with God or spiritual things at all. It’s a dumb analogy anyway. Not like I’m going to hang out near a road and dart out in front of traffic. So yeah, not a good analogy for my life anyway, not sure why I let it symbolize anything for me. Need to get better with the self talk. That’s just one of those random things, most people would have just told themselves, "oh well". Survival of the fittest, I suppose. Dumb bird. My dad said that all is not lost, that bird’s carcas will probably provide food for another animal, perhaps a turkey vulture, I don’t know. So in that sense, nothing returns void. Everything serves a purpose. Maybe this is a more positive way to look at it.

Work is crazy and I hope my injury is not permanent. There’s a rumour going around that my department manager may be getting a promotions soon and his position will be opening up. I may be considered for it if this happens. I’ve taken the supervisor leadership test, passed, and I’ve put in for the position if it ever comes open. It’s just a rumour though. Someone has said that they don’t plan to promote our DM at all, they are just telling him this to play with his head. But he’s been all excited thinking he’s going to get promoted. If they are indeed doing this just to mess with him, that seems very wrong. We’ll see.

There’s a girl at work, I think she was hired as a door greeter and they use her in seasonal department quite a bit. They seem to just place her wherever they need her, and this week she’s in electronics. We are all kind of wary of her because she doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about electronics. She’s only 18, and she’s pregnant. I’m not knocking this, it is what it is. She’s a very cute, sweet girl, but there’s just something off about her. One of my female coworkers says she thinks it’s hormonal because she’s pregnant. I have no idea. They may keep her in electronics since we have an opening . . . our newest hire, let’s call him James (not his real name), got fired last week because loss prevention caught him steeling. We knew something was off about him as well and I get the same feeling about this girl, that’s the only reason I bring her up. Anyhow, "James" stole $2500 worth of merchandise over the course of a couple of weeks. They actually had the police come to the store and arrest him, take him to jail. Sad. I don’t know why some people do what they do.

I’ve got three days off later this week, Wed, Thurs, and Friday.  Taking some personal time.  My birthday is Thursday.  I’ll be 30.  Not looking forward to it.  I

 feel like hitting the big ‘3’ ‘0’ means I’m not young anymore.  Oh well.  What can I do?

-AR