April Sucks

Warning: this post is just one big rant.

The weather today has been weird. It’s cloudy and dark one minute as if it’s going to rain, and then a few minutes later it’s sunny again. It’s annoying. Just rain already. My yard looks like crap because it hasn’t rained in a zillion days.

Yesterday I went for a run after work. It was hot. It was humid. My lower legs burned in that oh-so-annoying way that they do when I’m coming back from an extended break from running, which meant I had to stop and walk a couple times within the first mile to ease the discomfort. Then I somehow got it into my head that I should do a bit of speedwork. On a hot and humid day. When I’m just coming back from an extended break. Did I mention the wind was blowing at 15-20 knots with gusts even higher? And that I was trying to run into it? Or that I spent the entire hour tugging at my running skirt because it kept riding up? It was a miserable run and unlike most miserable runs, I didn’t even feel better at the end.

And I went to bed too late, so I was tired this morning. Although from another perspective, I went to bed too EARLY. Assuming the shuttle launches on Friday, my first shift is from 10 pm to 7 am. I can’t slam-shift that much in one day, which means I have to sleep shift. Which means I really need to be staying up 1-2 hours later every night and sleeping in accordingly. Ideally I’d go to bed at 2 am tonight and get up at 10 am, but I have a meeting at 9:00 tomorrow. And ideally I’d go to bed at 4 am tomorrow and get up at noon, but I have a meeting at 8:00 on Thursday. It’s really freaking hard to do that when people keep scheduling meetings at 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning.

And I have to support these meetings, because they’re all chart reviews of charts that I’m making and will be presenting at a review on Monday. (And guess what — the review is during a time when I should ideally be asleep.) Yes, you read that right. I am presenting on Monday. The people who run the meeting are important NASA Headquarters people, which means the charts have to go through about a zillion “pre-meeting reviews” where they get edited and blessed by progressively higher levels of management to make sure everything is perfect for the Uber-Manager. My life this week is a whirlpool of Powerpoint charts that all say the same thing in slightly different ways.

And our next door neighbors insist on keeping their garbage can along the side of their house. Nevermind that everyone else on the street keeps their garbage in the garage — and since the neighbors don’t park their cars in there, one has to assume there is room for their trash. So their trash is on the side of their house. Which is the side next to our house. And they don’t seem to own a LID for their garbage can. Did I mention it’s been crazy windy here lately? So their trash is always in my freaking flower beds! The garbage truck comes on Tuesdays, yet when I got home today there were still 3 bags of trash sitting next to their house, which means I’m in for another three days of picking junkmail and empty potato chip bags out of my azaleas.

I realize these are all minor problems in the grand scheme of things, but they have all combined to leave me stressed out and frustrated today. And what good is a blog if I can’t use it to vent?

And these are just the latest in a string of events, big and small, that have made April 2011 into a world of SUCK.

I am SO ready for April to be over.