Rolling to Work--You Can't Beat it!

I sort of stopped working when school started (oops). After I somewhat recovered from the initial 3 weeks of extreme stress and anxiety, I decided I better get back to it. I'm not sure I've blogged about work before. In June I officially became one of the Maryland Disability Law Center's Sunshine Folk. Just so my supervisor doesn't have a cow, I don't work for MDLC, I work with MDLC. Some sort of very important legal distinction. They don't pay much, but I don't work much (and I'd still do it for free). It's a very part-time very flexible job. I'm working nursing home outreach. This month I did all sorts of very important work related things (meetings, venturing to the ADAPT action for a few hrs, a picnic run by the local CIL) but I hadn't been into any nursing homes. I have a "prisoner" I'm working to get out of a nursing home about 1.5mi from me who I hadn't checked in on. So after a meeting Tues I rolled over to her. I'm also supposed to be going to 2 new nursing homes a month. I went to the Medicare Compare site earlier in the month and found another nursing home 1mi from me in the other direction. But I never went there. So Friday right after class I rolled to the library to check my email and then I rolled over there. I need a good looking Sept report.

I know I've blogged about this before, but being able to roll to work gives me such a sense of freedom. I've often griped about how my lack of ability to drive a car limits where I can work and where I can live so much more then someone who can drive. A professor of mine lives up in PA and commutes an hr each way. I gripe that while I would never choose to do that, I still would like to have the option to, and I don't. I need to stop griping. This may just be the shock of the century, but I'm growing kind of fond of rolling. I may change my mind when the weather changes and I'm rolling 1.5mi up the street to my prisoner in 40 degrees, but I really like the way the wind blows through my hair as I travel at about 6mph. I also like the lack of advance planning that being able to roll to work gives me too. Friday I decided to roll over to that nursing home 15mins before I did. I didn't have to make sure I had enough $ for round trip cab fare or check and double check the bus schedule. I just went. And then rolled back here and went to dinner. I mean, I do have to make sure the chair has enough juice, but it'd been plugged in for 2.5hrs in the hallway outside of class. I'm not sure the thrill of spontaneity is ever going to get old, whether it's being able to roll 1mi to work when I'm at school or being able to walk 3 blocks to the grocery store when I'm at home.

What don't I like about being able to roll to work? The fact that I can roll to work. The fact that there are 4-6 nursing homes within a reasonable rolling distance of me. Why? Why do we have to warehouse so many people? Why don't people understand that it is more cost effective to serve people in their own homes? Why don't people know that the state has money to pay for home services, if accessed in the right way? Why are all of these people imprisoned when they don't have to be? I'll never understand.

A Good Haircut...

...seems to be all that I need to fall in love with myself.. For the last few years haircuts have put me in a rather good mood, but this time it seems to be particularly so. I'd been walking around for a month with horrible hair feeling grumpy. It was good when I got it, but 11 weeks is too long to go. I was holding out until after it finished being 90+ degrees every day to chop off my pony tail and bring my hair back to chin length. It's utterly AMAZING how much a great haircut can alter your mood.

I like to give a stylist and approximate length and then let them go. It's just hair. It'll grow back. Well the guy said he was going to give me a "sassy ass bob" and he did (until I washed it and fell asleep with it still wet that is). I got the biggest smile on my face as I watched large chunks of hair falling on my lap, and an even bigger smile when I got to see the final product.

I don't understand it, but no matter who cuts my hair and what kind of cut they decide to do, a new cut seems to make me feel like I can conquer the world and puts some spunk in my step. At 23 I still look like I belong in high school and for some reason I always get delusional and think that the cut has magically made me look my age. Somehow after a cut I actually feel like an adult instead of a kid masquerading as one. I feel like I can actually handle the responsibilities that adults have, and I feel like maybe now I'm attractive to men. I've been dressing better for the last few days, and if I could figure out which purse last had my lip gloss and eye shadow, I'd be putting those on as I rolled over to class. If only this confidence didn't fade as the hair grows out, I'd make leaps and bounds in my emotional development.

I haven't been blogging or reading blogs for weeks. I'm going through a dry spell and a bit of a rough time. If only I'd known that all I needed to snap out of it was a good haircut, I would have gone and gotten one weeks ago! There were some other great things that happened this past week-- some time spent with hippie crips, a friend wanting to set me up on a date, my semiannual botox appointment, and a visit to my personal trainer (and the gorgeous man candy that work with her) right before my haircut -- but the haircut, the haircut just finished me off. It doesn't make the stressful anxiety producing things in my life go away, but I've gotten a bit of a break from those things occupying the front of my mind. I'm hot, I'm spunky, and I'm ready for that date (maybe?), because at least for the time being, I've fallen back in love with myself.

Where Have I Been?

SCHOOL!!!! Classes started on the 2nd. I HATE SCHOOL!!!! I've just got nothing blogable going on now. The first 2 weeks of the semester are the worst. Running (rolling?) around trying to get a handle on my new schedule, getting my profs on the same page w/me (or is that me on the same page w/them?), all of the fun things going on, and generally trying to keep my head on straight. It's maddening, and has been worse then usual. Very soon I think I will have some rather interesting things to blog about, as I hope to have some great adventures, or at the very least a thought provoking class or 2. I have a feeling I will be blogging soon as the topic for the Sept 25th disability blog carnival is "Falling." I'm an expert on that...