Ahnsael

I should be in bed by now. But the past week got weird, especially last night and today. Not all in bad ways, but I turned down the good ways because of circumstances. And that’s all I got to say about that. I cannot go into detail. But I am in a weird place right now. I’ll be okay. I just am not sure what comes next.

So the relationship ended. She will be going to Minnesota to return her little sister (9 years old, but the person I was seeing has been raising her).It was an amicable breakup. I understand that she didn’t want to keep being boyfriend and girlfriend knowing that it would have to end. It’s also probably the best thing for my feelings that she it before I got more romantically attached.

She may come back, but I have a feeling she won’t want to be a couple then either. My gut says she won’t be back. If she does come back, it will be a few months after she leaves (she doesn’t know when she will be going yet).

But this has been the BEST BREAKUP EVER. Nothing has changed between us. We still talk and make each other laugh. I drove her home this morning and she held my hand the whole way. I let her be the DJ on the way home over YouTube (the audio was playing through the car speakers) and one of the songs she chose was Whitney Houston singing “I Will Always Love You.” During the musical interlude she turned to me and said “I still love you, Kenny.” I responded that I still love her. It’s just no longer a romantic love. When the song ended she told me “When you miss me, I want you to think of this song.”

Every song she chose related to our friendship/love somehow. The cool part is when a lyric hit home for me, we both squeezed each other’s hand at the exact same time. It wasn’t one person squeezing and the other responding. We were being hit by the same lyrics.

I am starting to feel like I am bad luck.

I started seeing someone. She is about to move away and we have both acknowledged that it will be the end of that. I’m not moving to Minnesota with her. We will remain friends. We will keep the love that we have for each other. We didn’t go as far as being “in love.” It’s not like she is picking up and leaving without talking to me about it first. She has to do what is right for her sister and her mom and it’s not something that I can take personally.

But the last time she came over to my house (we have not taken THAT step -- it’s been cuddling, not going all the way) she got a phone call that her stepdad was about to die. He did.

She came over tonight and got another phone call about her older brother. From what she understands, he may have overdosed on something. Still alive, as of when she left here to get him and take him to the hospital. Unconscious but breathing and with a pulse. I may know more later tonight. I promised her I would stay awake for updates.

I know neither thing was my fault. I know she is leaving for the sake of family and family comes first.

She needed company last night after taking her brother to the hospital (he is alive and responsive). So I’ve got a naked woman in my bed. We didn’t do anything; we had previously each told each other that we prefer sleeping nude so clothes don’t get all twisted up during the tossing and turning that we each do. But there was nothing sexual about it. She is still sleeping (she snores as much as I do but I got up before her because I work tonight so I have to go to bed around noon or 1pm so here I am, now fully dressed, at my computer. Normally I would be watching TV right now but I am trying not to disturb her. She has had a rough time and needs her sleep.

I had to laugh though. I got up at about 4am and with almost every breath, she also farted in her sleep. I didn’t smell any of them and they weren’t huge farts or anything but I found it amusing. I’m gonna miss hanging out with her.

I know I am not here as much as I used to be because I use Facebook more now. I don’t feel like it would be safe to post this there but I have to vent and based off what I have been told yesterday Facebook may not be safe for this.

Not gonna lie. I am in A PLACE right now. But not THAT place where I am a danger to myself. Someone told me that I've been doing really well mentally. Then I was told something that made me doing not so well. I've already called out for tonight. I do not know who I can trust at work. I will give you the Reader’s Digest version. I have become close with a coworker. “People” (again, no idea who but “people” means more than one) have told this person that being close to me is going to hurt me. That is how I know that it is coworkers telling them this. I don’t see them hurting me. I mean, maybe the friendship doesn’t end up working out. I’m used to that. From there on, things remain professional. I’ve had a long enough career to know how to do that. Heck, I was once engaged, she dumped me in an email on Christmas Eve 1997 saying that she had chosen someone else over me and I still went to work at Disneyland and treated her with respect.

It’s not them that I am worried about. It’s the people telling me that they are going to hurt me when all they have done is help me. I want names and I know I will not get them. I WANT to confront these people and talk things out. So all I can do is lose my trust with EVERYBODY with whom I work, If I had names I could have that awkward conversation. With no names, I cannot trust anybody. I may have people out to get me. Or out to get the other person. As close as we are, and with me being a manager and them not, I stay out of things like “they overslept and were late” because I don’t want to show favoritism and also it’s not my call in the first place. Decisions like that don’t involve me in the first place and it would be inappropriate for me to get involved.

I am trying SO HARD to not let this get the best of me. But to know that coworkers are plotting against me and not knowing which coworkers hurts .I really though t I could trust the people I have worked with for so long. And now I suddenly have no clue who l can trust. I tried to get through this post without crying, but...I failed. I dislike failing. Y'all, if you have something nice to say about me, please reply.

This is the chalk. I referred to it as “the thing you use that I don’t know what it does.” It became a running gag throughout the night. “I’m gonna use that thing that I don’t know what it does.” I think that running gag will continue. So to be honest (even though it was dishonest of me to do so because I figure they are cheap), I stole one to put in my box at work to remember this “friend date” by.

She was told yesterday to put in writing her desire to become a manager.. That;s a good sign. That would mean her and I hanging out outside of work would no longer be breaking the rules. I was taking a risk last night. It WAS against the rules. But if she is an equal job title, it’s okay for us to meet outside of work. But she is the one who has helped me through a lot of mental issues and she has become a good friend to me. Screw work rules when it comes to my mental health. If she helps me, she helps me. I would just tell my boss, if someone had seen us, “do you want me sent home in a mental breakdown, or do you want me here doing my job because she helped me through the mental breakdown?” I was one told I was not promoted (I do not WANT to be promoted; last thing I need is more stress) because “Then who would work graveyard?”

But she would make a great manager. She has learned a lot in a short time, and she got this. I hope she gets it.

I am genuinely happy for the first time in a long time, and I have a specific friend to thank for that. Someone I know in person who was kind enough to spend some time with me last night. It was a LOT of fun and very therapeutic. I haven't gone out and had fun for a long time (nothing romantic, just friendship). But the last time I went out and had fun was last September when I went to an Imagine Dragons concert (sadly I missed this part, because I was so tired and knew I had to drive 8 hours home the next morning to work the next night -- I didn't plan my time off well so I had to leave the concert early and I missed this part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI-z7EE3IcU), but I was flying solo. The last time before that was September of 2019 when I went to Disneyland pre-COVID, but again, I was flying solo then as well (I had plans to take someone with me, but she stood me up). Just a couple hours with someone else just having fun last night beat both of those experiences. It was REALLY nice to have a co-pilot last night when I went out to actually do something other than sleep, work, eat, and repeat.

How things work out time will tell, but she did tell me that she would pay for the next (as we are calling it) “friend date.” I like that we call it that because we are not rushing things. Time will tell. But I consider us co-pilots at this point. NOT boyfriend/girlfriend at this point. I’ve only known her for a couple months -- she hired in while I was out of work for a while due to a hospital stay and recovery time.

And in the past few weeks, she has helped talk me down from anxiety attacks, which I haven’t had any for the past five nights (I was even sent home a few times because I was useless at work because of them).

But to just go play pool with someone (who had never played before but beat me four games to three) was a lot of fun. And the bartender was hip. It was $5 for 65 minutes, and she said she wouldn’t time us. We played for two hours. So we had one drink each (I would have bought her a second one, but we were almost to closing time, but just the one for me since I was the one driving her home) and that was $12 but I gave the bartender a $20 bill and walked away. She tried to bring my change to the pool table and I refused it and said “that’s you.” At the end, my friend wanted a cup of water so I went and got it, and tipped another $5 and told the bartender that it was for letting us play so long. If she wasn’t charging us for the extra hour, let her put it in her own pocket. I’m not her boss, I don’t have to worry about the rules. I mean, it’s not like there was a line for the pool tables. Only one other group was playing, and there was another table. I learned to not watch them because we sucked at pool and they obviously were better than us.

But I told her up front that we would have fun sucking at pool, and that is exactly what we did.

AND IT WAS AWESOME.

I’ve had an emotional week. I don’t think I’ve cried this much since watching Schindler’s List.

I don’t want to go any further into detail but it was a love thing that didn’t work out. I hate when I fall too far to fast but I’ve been single since 2008 so I did so. Bad move.

She is very mad at me now and I am just going to let her go. She already broke up with me for wanting to get to know her before we became an official item. I am not going to chase her.

Lesson: don’t fall in love with someone you’ve only known for a week.

She fell harder and faster than I did but I need to NOT do that crap anymore. Because it just hurts in the end. Unless, of course, things just work out perfectly. Which is DEFINITELY not what happened here.

This is me.

Last week I got an explanation of cherges for PART of my hospital stay (before that, I already owed around $2,300). This one was for over $102,000. It was one of those descriptions of services provided and the price for them that said “THIS IS NOT A BILL” on top.

Yesterday I got the bill. I opened it this morning after coming home from work. A contract between the hospital and insurance company had the hospital cover over $40,000 of it, and the insurance covered over $60,000 of it. My share tht I have to pay? $1,000 even.

I cannot believe this isn’t going to bankrupt me. I owe a little over $3,200 overall, but that’s better than over $102,000.

And to think, late last year I thought of going back to my old insurance because this insurance is so expensive (over $200/paycheck). But that old insurance covered $350 of a $27,500 medical bill and told me I had hit my annua cap. This insurance has a contract with the hospital that has the hospital cover some of it, and this insurance has covered WAY more than the amount I’ve paid them since having this insurance. I’m DEFINITELY keeping the expensive insurance. And the $40/paycheck that I contribute to my HSA may be something I want to pay more into. I’ve paid for my new prescription glasses with that, and I’ll be covering part of this with it.

I still wish we had national health care, but what I’ve got isn’t bad at all.

Yesterday's drive home was scary. By last night and this morning roads were clear. Which is odd for my county.

More snow later today. This has been a winter for the ages, according to life-long residents. Not like snow in the midwest when I lived there, but this is Nevada. They are not prepared for this.

But they’re doing as best as they can.

It’s often not good enough for safe driving, but an attempt was was made.

Even if they sucked at it.

I just drive according to conditions and screw the person tailgating me who wants me to go faster. Pass me or back off. I’ll drive 20 mph in a 45mph zone on icy roads. Deal with it. I’m in a front-wheel drive hatchback. I don’t have their 4X4 truck. I have to set my limits and stick to them.

I’m off the walker now. My boss is no longer working with me on my grave shift now that I’ve convinced that I’m OK. I have to sit and rest now and then, but I have to do that less and less. Other than upcoming medical bills, I’m good. An attempted romance didn’t work out. It happens. I’ve come to terms with it. She now knows this (when you tell someone need to talk, and then avoid them for a month, it makes it obvious). But I told her that if the talk was stressing her out so much, we didn’t need to have it, I already got it. I saw the stress leave her body..That’s about as best as I could expect. Not fair to me, but the best I could have hoped for knowing her.

So...moving on, getting back to the swing of things, still learning how to put compression socks on right and not too tight (I had a lot of swelling in my legs), but constant improvement. Two more days and I my be ready to take the 22 stairs upstairs and down again in change the music (I will take someone with me in case I don’t make it -- nobody else has they keys to that room so if I fall or collapse, nobody would be able to help if the weren’t there with me)l but this has been an adventure.

Also, I will have prescription glasses in two weeks or so. That doesn’t bother me. The other issues do. I’m getting older and I don’t like it.

I haven’t talked about this on this site.

Two Mondays ago, I took a step with my left foot. There was nobody around. Then I took a step with my right foot, and two paramedics were standing in my way, asking where I thought I was going. I was heading to rearrange tables in one room where we move them Monday mornings to get carts through.

They said “No, you’re not, you’re coming with us.” I spent a week and a half in the hospital, most of it in ICU, I have no idea what happened between those two steps. I think I went down due to low potassium  levels. Seizure is definitely a possibility. I asked over and over for a week to see surveillance footage, even after I write my report tonight on my limited memory of the circumstance. My boss never even looked at it, and it’s been overwritten on the DVR by now. I’ve heard different versions of what may have happened. Seizure, a fall, other such things. The two constants between the different versions are that nobody saw it happen, and that my security guard found me on the ground and called 9-1-1.  I go back to work tomorrow night. I’m using a walker to get around. My boss said that I couldn’t come back until I don’t need a walker, but the casino owner overruled him and will let me use it for a short time.

I’m worried I’m going to be sent home and told to wait a week or two before coming back, but I need the money. But walking is hard. Even shuffling my feet is hard. And I spend 8 hours a night on my feet at work. I have to try to “get back on the horse.”

It bothers me that I don’t know what happened. It bothers me that I am having trouble walking. It bothers me that so many of my friends have had such a rough January 2023. It REALLY bothers me that I don’t know if I can make it through a shift tomorrow. It bothers me that I can’t seem to sleep for more than two hours at a time. It bothers me that it’s hard to stay awake for more than two hours at a time.

I don’t know if I’m ready, But I’m going to try “fake it ‘til I make it” mode.

But after nine days in a hospital bed, having to be assisted to the restroom, I’m weak.

I was supposed to go back tonight, but my boss needs days off as much as he’s been working extra shfts while I’ve been gone, so I got one extra day off because they want me to have another manager as backup (understandable). I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing that I get the extra day off.

I’m scared. I don’t know what to expect out of my body. My arms are bruised -- partly from whatever happened, partly from having up to 7 IVs in my arms at once (most of them with multiple medications dripping through each one). I have a huge scab in my right arm because of an IV that wasn’t put in well. I have no idea what the bill will be like, but it was about a 30-mile ambulance ride. I have better insurance than I did when I found out that I’m anemic, and a 4-mile ambulance ride cost me over $5,000, the hospital bill was $27,500 and my insurance covered $350 of it and told me I had hit my annual cap. They covered none of the ambulance ride. I may be in debt for life, And I’m still very weak.

I don’t know the right way to play this. I fought SO HARD to come back when I will, that I’m going to feel like a heel if I cannot make it. But I’ve broken bones and not had it hurt this bad.

Wish me luck tomorrow night.

Wanted to share this story of it snowing at Walt Disney World in 1989. Definitely not a frequent occurrence.

It’s been a week full of crying.

My job is asking so much of me and I can’t keep up. People are telling me I should quit and find something else, but I like our guests and overall I like my job (we’re just so short staffed that I can’t find the time to do it all). And a former coworker and I who started becoming close not long before she was fired for being 7 hours late to work -- more on that in a moment) and she recently got back with an abusive boyfriend.

This is the “more on that:” he drugged her. That was the reason she was late and lost her job. And I heard from one guest last night that she saw them together a couple nights ago at another casino.

Last night she came in and we were talking. She silenced one call from this guy. When he called again, she left. She apologized via Messenger for not saying goodby first. But the excuse she gave was not honest. She said she saw our morning Keno guy driving up and while it’s true that he has it out for her, he was off today. He was not there.

But I see her making the same mistakes my mom made with Evil Stepdad #1. It’s the same pattern of realizing that she needs to leave him, then getting back together with him. My mom married Evil Stepdad #1, realized he was abusive, then married him again. And I’m seeing that same thing play out.

I don’t think that me and her will ever be a thing, but I don’t want to see her hurt by him again and I have told her as much. As much work stress as I have had lately, with even guests who like me telling me I should quit and find something else less stressful, including this lady, I had to tell her the same thing that I’m not taking people’ advice on. Quit him and find someone else. She is a fantastic person with some issues but she could do SO MUCH BETTER than someone that would drug her. And I would judge her but I saw my mom go back over and over to an abusive guy, but I don’t see why mom did it, and I don’t see why this lady is doing it. Why go back to someone who even they know is abusive?

I’m lonely, having last dated seriously in 2008, but even I can’t see doing that.And maybe it’s my lack of dating experience that is the reason for not understanding. I’m just used to not being with someone. I cannot relate to that need that some people have.

And I’ll be honest: I have expressed interest when she last broke up with him. But I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen. If she and I can remain friends and just friends, that’s a win. Because she’s a good person and someone who has my trust, as long as we’ve known each other. But she could do SO MUCH BETTER than this jerk. I know him, and I KNOW he’s a jerk. It’s not just from what she’s told me; I’ve witnessed him being a jerk first-hand (not the drugging, but in many other ways). I just wish she would leave him. It’s not a me thing. It’s just that I’ve seen this play out before and I know it will not end well if she keeps going back to him. She just needs to find someone better, or be single. Because I am scared for her. But I don’t know what to say or do. 

I do love that he said that "being kind" is not political. It is not. For those who feel that kindness is political, they are just plain wrong. Kindness should be universal. Nothing political about it. What's political about being kind? But some people don't feel the same way.

I definitely prefer this Bob that replaced the Bob that was there after him and before Bob came back, though I think the middle Bob was just overwhelmed. But I'm glad to have the other Bob back. Am I just Bobbing for apples at this point in the comment? You decide.

I called in sick tonight.After a month of six day weeks, I was worried that I would make bad decisions tonight just out of exhaustion. And I am sick as well. If it was one or the other I would go in, but the two combined make me think that I would be more a detriment than an asset. So our new grave manager will be on her own one day early, but she knows that my phone will be on. And she is on the ball, so I may not get a call. And our assistant manager will be there at 4am and he can help her if she needs it.I couldn’t get a hold of my boss (his phone went straight to voicemail several times, so either his phone is off or he has no coverage), so I talked to the assistant instead.

I literally just found out that Angela Lansbury passed away last month. I’ve been so busy at work that I didn’t even know.

Rest in peace, Angela. You made the world a better place.

Okay, this video made me happy.

I was about Drew Barrymore’s age when ET came out. It was the first movie I saw in a theater. I was the one holding the popcorn bucket. That was a bad decision on my dad’s part.

Because during the scene where Elliot sees ET for the first time and screams, I was so startled that I literally thew the bucket up in the air and got popcorn all over everyone around me.

I got spanked for that when we got home, because he expected a 7 year-old kid at his first movie to not react to what I saw. I’ve never been a fan of jump scares, and I think that moment (and the resulting punishment for reacting) is the reason.

But this is a great movie. And it’s nice to see some of the cast getting back together and seeing that they have aged just as I have.

But Drew’s story about thinking ET was real, and Steven Spielberg not wanting her to find out otherwise, was endearing.

Last week an assistant property manager (not the BEST at his job, but a good person) came in at about 3am saying that when he had been called in earlier to refill cash drawers because we didn’t have enough to pay a jackpot on swing shift (this is true). He said he had left his phone in the vault. Thursday morning, we had a manager’s meeting. Afterwards, he pulled me aside to tell me that he HADN’T left his phone in the vault. He had heard complaints from day shift people (the most drama-filled shift) about things that we were not doing. He came into see whether it was true under the guise of having left his phone. I wondered why he stayed so long after “retrieving his phone.”

He told me that he saw us doing everything that he was told we were not doing, and decided that everything he had heard from day shift was BS. He said he was going to write positive things about all three of us who were there that night and have HR put it in our files. And that he would let me deliver the two documents that were not about me to them to up their morale a bit. It was sneaky, but it was the right thing for him to do if he had been getting complaints about our performance (my hands don’t work as good as they used to, but my security guard has picked up my slack). I’ve always considered us the “drama-free” shift but apparently that’s changed. But one of my bosses came in and saw us getting stuff done, so hopefully that will nip that in the bud. It won’t, but I know that at least one of my bosses has my back.

Some people think that because we have fewer guests on grave (not always true -- we have people who specifically come in late because they know who is working and our head counts tend to jump from what they were on Swing Shift) don’t realize how many other things we have to do to prepare for the new day.