12:26 AM - 26.01.05
War
One of the times I went for training for election work in Ottawa the all-day classes were scheduled to begin at about the time I was usually rolling out of bed on my hometown hours. Wanting to be alert and able to learn, I decided to try using melatonin the way it is prescribed to work for jet lag. Packed it in my purse - along with aspirin. The two pills are just slightly different sizes but the same colour - you can see where this is going, can't you dear diary. First morning we were escorted to the big boardroom for the department's weekly morning meeting. I had the beginnings of a migraine, so I reached in to my purse for an aspirin. I must have missed and grabbed the melatonin instead, because as soon as it hit my system, it was all I could do to stay conscious. As I've noted before it doesn't take much of any drug to affect me strongly. That's why I prefer herbal medicine, being that the effects of the credible makers are much milder. It wasn't the company - really.
Seguing to today, I had had a very productive morning slogging through some very difficult material. A lot of disparate data all jammed into one record. Makes summarizing quite challenging and one doesn't have a lot to show for the time invested. Really interesting historical data though. I popped downstairs to grab some soup about half past lunch, since I was beginning to feel the effects of all that concentration. Returned immediately to what I was doing, since we have been asked to hurry up this part of the process. That food regenerated me and the music I was listening to helped as well. Prepared some tea then let it steep, while I took one set of records back to the fileroom and returned with the next batch. Gulped down some of that tea while I was starting in on the next batch and had a reaction very similar to the one I described in Ottawa. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion or fatigue but not like the normal drowsiness one would equate with a long day of work. The material I was working with had become even more interesting, so I can't attribute the feeling to boredom either. In fact, that is likely what kept me from succumbing completely. The feeling today replicated the same level of exhaustion I felt some days toward the very end of the election last year when I would go into the downtown client's office once a week. Overwhelming, but I would be fine once I got back to the Returning Office. Just odd. After fighting it for about an hour I realized that something with a lot of caffeine might act as an antidote, so I grabbed a Coke out of the coffee room and put on one of Tea Party's later productions. Worked like a charm. Note to self - next time it happen don't wait so long.
The day started out with a motet on BBC. Ms Kitty didn't seem to mind that so much. Dressed and was out the door wondering how I had managed to move so fast. Ditto for the bus ride. Ran to the platform of the train station and realized I was in trouble. You see, I've lost a fair amount of weight, or at least my clothes fit a lot looser these days. So loose, that one of my unmentionables had actually fallen off my waist and was heading bootward. Oi. What's a girl to do? Bless long skirts and bulky coats for something. I managed to retrieve the offending article before it hit the ground in a weird bit of a dance, hoping that the darkness would cover some of my antics. Hauled that piece of clothing back up past my knees and back into place. Had to hang on to it all the long walk into work from the train platform, again blessing the darkness and the bulky coat that hid most of the problem. At work I removed the offending article and hid it at the bottom of my "desk in a bag". Can't win for losing. Well actually I am really pleased I've lost so much - I just hadn't considered all the ramifications. Guess I have no choice but to buy some new undies. To top it all off, the heat over my desk was on high and I had worn one of my heavier sweaters. Couldn't take off my pantyhose as I would do normally in those circumstances because of the other issue.
I know some women don't worry much about what is under their office wear. One of the bosses even described her lack thereof in great detail to one of the married males on staff one morning. The look on his face was enough to keep me giggling for the rest of the day, and yes I do realize that could be deemed sexual harrassment, but that wasn't her intent. He had asked her, as new to this climate, what effect it was having on her. She told him.
Others even do the Brittney look even though I've explained that there is enough sexual innuendo in the halls anyway. One of the co-workers that I have now, about the same age as me, started dressing that way in response to my tech from the election returning to work last week. Maybe I'll just mention meeting his wife and son on the weekend to her to save her some embarrassment down the road. I don't usually think of the males in the office in terms of their looks, but I guess my tech is good looking - so are my supervisor and my co-worker for that matter, but to me handsome or pretty is as handsome or pretty does. Looks don't matter much past the first 15 minutes of a relationship.
That guy who keeps bothering me? Bleagh still at it today. Staked out the fileroom and seemed to be waiting in there. When I went around by the outside hallway he followed me into the kitchen where I had retreated to hide. My tech said he had had a chat with him about me but I guess he still can't get it through his head. Just a jerk. The saving grace was a call from my supervisor. I've mentioned before how swamped he is with his own workload, yet here he was offering to go pick up office supplies for me. I haven't been able to mark the completed work in the usual way, because that material has run out in this company's supplies. Each time I've approached the receptionist for anything the response has always been a hostile "no". Gave up asking for anything just before Christmas when the last of the flags I was using ran out. Don't need the hassle. Anyway, it was very kind of him to even think about it let alone to go out shopping for me. I went and asked one of the nice secretaries if there was anything they could do so he wouldn't have to lose time and she was able to figure something out. Called my supervisor back to let him know I'd worked it out. Guess I should have thought of it before. The receptionist hasn't been back since Christmas break, so maybe this is a bonus.
Took my mind off those things when I started reading one of my new books on the train - "Shake Hands With the Devil" by General (ret) Romeo Dallaire today. He was in Rwanda during the worst of the massacres that were the genocidal policy of the ruling tribe in that country. 800,000 murders in just a few weeks in 1994. No amount of begging would get the UN Security Council to commit resources to protect them. And then we have Iraq.
Anyway, the descriptions are pretty awful - very much like reading Amnesty International's Annual Reports to the UN. Dry, emotionless words describing unthinkable acts of torture and murder against other human beings just because they look or think or worship differently than the main stream. Amnesty does not take on cases of people who have used or advocated violence either. Not even Nelson Mandela when he was in jail, because at that time he advocated the violent overthrow of the South African government, although I can empathize with his reasoning and can't say I would have managed to do any better in the same circumstances. The non-violent mothers' movements in South Africa and Argentina to stop those identical abuses of their governments put me in as much awe as the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community's approach to the genocide being practiced by the Chinese government in their homeland even as we speak. And then there is Iraq.
I was still volunteering quite a bit for Amnesty International when the first reports of the Rwandan massacres started pouring in. At the time we had just been celebrating the release of some of the concentration camp inmates in the Sudan - the ones the Ethiopian government had hidden away with complicity of the Sudanese government so that they could continue receiving foreign aid withheld for their attempts at genocide with respect to the Eritrean community. And then there was Somalia. The stories out of Rwanda were almost a repeat of what Somali refugees here in our City were telling us had happened in their country. And then there was Uganda and Libya. No intervention there and certainly none in Nigeria where villagers were being murdered enmasse because they had the gall to live above huge pools of oil and gas. Africa wracked with violence and devastating disease. Nothing to gain said the UN observers to General Dallaire - nothing here but a bunch of human beings. Nothing to gain by intervening. Well yes. And then we have Iraq.
So far what has fascinated me most is the story of the General's childhood and youth. Child of a WW II war bride and her Canadian soldier husband growing up in French Canada. The perspective of a young adult with respect to the social movements in the 60's. Those same social movements I watched as a small child through the eyes of one of the people I idolized at the time - that leading edge of the baby boomers who had so much to say. Add in the awakening of Quebec nationalism and his comments about how he felt about it and I didn't even realize I should get off at my stop. Thought I had a lot more travel time to go. Guess not.
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