I Survived January (Barely).

I highly dislike January. Januarys have always been bad for me. Long, terrible weather, lots of stress, my birthday. This year was not much better.
A short list of things I survived, but have not fully recovered from: record snowfall and changes in temperature, 3 evictions, my 28th birthday, and losing the first bout of the season.

1st, my birthday. Unfortunately, my birthday enjoyment peaked at age 21 when I had the extraordinary experience of spending the entire month in Cuba. During that month, me and 2 other girls celebrated our birthdays with a killer birthday party at a fantastic resort in the town of Trinidad & Tobago, and then later at a party in Havana. For the 1st party, all the students on the trip pooled part of our per diem - half the class bought rum ($2 - $7 per bottle US) and the other half bought mixers - regular or orange soda - to mix with the rum. I don't remember much but my first case of the room spins.

The 2nd party in Havana was upstairs in a building on a main avenue - overlooking the Malecon. There was an obscene amount of food and dancing and fabulous Cuban music and a cake made specially for us birthday girls.

Understandably, compared with that, every birthday since is a bit of a let down.

There was the year I turned 26 - I had to beg people to go out on a Wed night, 3 people showed up, some guy tried to beat up my husband, and 2 foreign guys followed me to the bathroom in the bar and I thought they were going to lock me in the room and rape me. The year after that, 27, my birthday was the day after the derby league holiday party, which was the day after my husband's birthday. My husband's birthday is 2 days before mine, and it makes celebrating a bit of a challenge. Do we go out for both our birthdays? Go out on the day between our birthdays? Resign all independence and throw 1 party for both of us? No compromise seems to make either of us happy.

This year the holiday party delimma repeated itself- husband's birthday, holiday party, my birthday, and all 1 week before our season opener bout. I was too stressed to go to the holiday party, but that didn't stop me from frantically running around the mall at 8:30 pm that night, convinced that after working late I was going to find something nice to wear, run home, get ready, and get downtown to the party feeling relaxed and looking fantastic all in 20 degree below zero weather. Needless to say, this did not happen.

Instead, I made some friends take me out to a greasy chain restaurant the next night, drank a few margaritas, and then went bar hopping with said friends which ended up being a bust so we watched Ghost Busters while I passed out on my living room floor. When I compare that birthday with Cuba, I want to hang myself. How the hell did I get here?

I'll tell you the short versions: evictions. I had to evict 3 people last month. 1 for non-payment of rent, 2 for allowing people not on the lease to live in their apartment - both drug dealers. Taking someone to court is a long involved process, months in the making. In these cases, at least 7 months in the making.
Before you can go to trial in this county, they force the tenant and landlord to go into mediation - they want you to agree upon a move-out date without going to trial. As if I hadn't tried that already. No one wants to go to court unless it's a last resort. It's extremely costly and time consuming, and generally just not a lot of fun.

1 of the tenants agreed on a move-out date and the other 2 wanted to go to trial. This happened after a good hour of yelling, swearing, and generally making a large scene in which I was apparently playing the role of "evil landlord". After being yelled at, threatened, and called a bitch several times (all with the "mediator" in the room) I finally had had enough and asked the mediator "what kind of mediation is this?" She then added herself to the list of people who feel I am an evil bastard and left the room. Thankfully the trial dates were set for the next day, and I spent the rest of the afternoon at home and in my office with a box of kleenex because I couldn't stop crying for more than 10 minutes.

I got to focus the rest of the afternoon on getting all the paperwork and people I needed for trial together, (subpoenas, etc) which ended up being for the best because anytime without a task to do equaled massive amounts of crying. The trials themselves were nerve-wracking but went fairly smoothly, I guess (I've never been to trial before). I had to testify several time and thankfully we won them both. The next day began the actual eviction process: having the Sheriff serve writs, then come back within 14 days or they're no good & you have to start all over, getting a moving company to meet the Sheriff there, move the stuff out and put it in storage for 30 days (all of which the landlord gets to pay for), and the comedy of errors of me getting the wrong A-1 Movers. Who knew there was more than one A-1 Movers!? But guess what, you have to call the right one, or the eviction doesn't count, the Sheriff is an ass to you & leaves, and you have to change the locks back to the original ones you just took out. Thankfully, I got lucky for once and both evicted tenants turned in their keys so I didn't have to pay the Sheriff to come back again.

To top it off, I was at derby practice almost 100% of the time last month, because derby is the 1 thing that keeps me sane. It can be a lot of work, but it's the one place I can't think about anything else. And never underestimate the therapeutic benefits of working out until you can't move.

The upside of this was I was doing well, our whole team was doing well, and everyone expected us to win, or at least have a very close, bout. All that hype and pressure meant my entire team had a massive attack of performance anxiety and we broke down bout night. When things started to not go our way, we freaked out, lost control, and lost the bout. 8 out of 15 of us skating were 2nd year skaters, which means we've improved a lot since last year and are now expected to be, well, good. And in practice, we are. But we weren't prepared mentally for the change from last year, when no one cared whether we won or lost because we were the "bad" team and so many of us were 1st year skaters. TO add insult to injury, I've been reading an excellent sports psychology book trying to prepare myself for that very thing. And, 3 days before the bout I skated into the wall at practice, messed up my knee, and messed it up even more at the bout. What was I supposed to do, not skate? It's oddly puffy and only sore when I touch certain spots, but I can put all my weight on it and I'm tired of going to the doctor after derby injuries only to have them tell me "it's fine, stay off it" and then shake their heads. So fuck it.

Right now my body is falling apart, and I blame the stress. I'm not sure what happens to other people under extreme stress, but I fall apart. My skin breaks out, I gain weight, I get canker sores and stys and generally look like a leper.

Oh, I also took over the derby PR committee, which means I don't pay dues but spend a lot of time doing derby work (work I actually enjoy) and am now faced with the huge task of working to get 10,000 people here for the WFTDA Eastern Regionals Tournament in Oct.

And FINALLY I grew a pair and told my ED I hate my job and want a different one working 20 - 30 hours a week. If you talked to me in the last 7 months you know I have been trying to quit this job forever because I don't like it, it's stressful, and it is delaying me figuring out what I really want to do. I should have another job with the same org. by the end of Feb or March. Knowing how slow they move, probably the end of March. If that day rolls around and I still have this job - fuck it right in the ear. But Ive been saying that for awhile now.