23:03 - 25.05.05
Inversion
Shakespeare's As You Like It as sung by The Barenaked Ladies at the Stratford Festival.
The male cats are becoming increasingly involved in my nightly belly dance practices. This is not a good thing. They now lay themselves out along the path they know I travel, so that it is like hurdle event instead of a sensuous circle. I was never good at track and field events. Time has not changed that. When I'm down on the floor they often double or triple team me. Bear and Goldie will bite my toes or lick the soles of my feet. I am given to understand, through media reports, that that can be an erotic experience. However, with not quite adolescent, still teething felines it feels more like an acupuncturist gone mad. While the feet fetishists are doing their thing, Crazy Kitty - who looks like he's permanently plugged in to an active light socket and who will leap from wherever he is into one's arms if there's even a remote chance he might be caught before he hits the ground purring, well, like a crazy cat - will come up behind me and do his best to wrap himself up in my hair. Being that my hair is now grown back down to almost waist length, this is becoming an issue. Given his fur is much nicer and thicker than my hair, I hardly think he needs extra help from me.
I think I blew it today. You know how it is when you know a situation is going to be touchy and you try to tiptoe around it? I think I should have just stomped through the tulips and had done with it. The perfumed woman outdid herself this morning. I started coughing as soon as she arrived. I could feel my sinuses swelling shut. Within half an hour it was beginning to feel like someone had taken a baseball bat to my face. I took some meds for the allergies, but when I started feeling a certain level of pain in my lungs I decided I wasn't willing to risk another relapse either. Emailed the health rep to ask for a fan so I could at least have air flow around me. Waited another half hour. By what was now mid-morning, I had maxed out on the meds I could take. I started wondering what I was going to do when a real environmental challenge, like the summertime inversions over our downtown, kicked in. Lungs already compromised by continuous exposure to the toxins in that one person's perfume and maxed out meds would mean real trouble for me.
I don't want to come in to work each morning being stressed because of wondering how difficult a day it's going to be because of those days she decides her toilette is more important than my ability to breathe. Decided I didn't deserve that and couldn't afford any more lost wages either. As it is there is no money left in any little pocket for me. Although after reading this story poverty I guess I shuldn't complain. I emailed my supervisor to ask her if I could follow up on the suggestion of the health and safety rep last week to change places with the one coworker on the other side of the cubicle walls. Her set up isn't even close to being as good as mine, but at least I might be able to breathe. The physical barrier and more open space dilutes the chemical concentration, although one can smell the scent as soon as one walks through the security doors some distance away. Not great, but better than the current setup.
Maybe I should have talked directly to the perfumed woman first, but she had already told me she was going to wear her scent anyway, even after being asked by the supervisor not to. It almost seemed to me as though she wanted a confrontation on the issue. Quite honestly, I was having a hard enough time just breathing. That made me feel really tired and weepy, so I knew I wouldn't be able to address the issue effectively this morning. By asking simply to be moved ,I hoped to keep only the one person - my supervisor - involved without having the issue polarize the work groups on our floor. Exchanged several emails, then my supervisor agreed to permanently move me to the other spot, but not until tomorrow. She said she would talk with the perfumed woman again about her scent.
I went out for a walk at lunch with the one friend who I keep meeting up with in various contracts. It was windy and the air was cool - 12C/55 F. We weren't wearing coats. The wind seemed to blow away all the junk that had been starting to gather in my lungs, so I felt good while we walked. We met one of the scientists that we had both worked with in the first assignment where we met four years ago. They stood and chatted about their bicycles - both are enthusiasts - and then we headed back indoors.
Apparently my supervisor must have talked with the perfumed woman, because she was obviously angry. She had increased the amount of perfume she was wearing. The worst of today was that in past days she has spent at least part of her time working at filing in the stacks. Today, both morning and afternoon, she rarely left the cubicle. Oi.
At the end of the day I packed up and headed for the door feeling relief that I had managed to cough and hack my way through the afternoon rather than leaving, but also that I could finally get away from her. She comes in about an hour later than me, but today she waited until I stood to leave then grabbed her gear and hurried after me. I was trying to think of a way not to be alone with her on the elevator, but luckily two women from one of the other departments were just preparing to leave and ran for the elevator that had come for us. Maybe her early departure was coincidence, but I didn't want to try to deal with a confrontation in a very confined space where no one else was present either. As I noted at the beginning I really blew handling that one well. All I can hope is that some other drama will occupy her tomorrow.
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