Sunday, January 11, 2009

A happy 2009 to you all! Sorry it took nearly half of January before I shared my good will with you all, but I've been too busy and too sick to bother. In fact, I've been sick pretty much since I started at the library, which stinks, since I had lots of sick leave left at my old job and none yet at the library, so I've had to drag my sorry carcass in day after day. I suppose if it came to it, I could have called in sick; after all, I think they would assume no one would call in sick the first week of work unless they absolutely had to. But I've mostly been functional, and made it in to work daily. I even made it in this Thursday, despite barely being able to move Wednesday night and being feverish and delusional most of the night. I went to bed around seven, as soon as I got home from work Wednesday, and didn't get out of bed until 8 the next morning, except a brief effort around midnight to eat some udon soup and use the restroom.

The nice thing about being sick on the new job is that I get to try out the new health insurance. I have Kaiser now, and had heard a lot of things, both good and bad. And I must admit, I'm impressed. I called Friday around 9:30, and got an appointment that day at 2:10. With my old doctor, I would never get in the same day, especially not for something as trivial as a cold. So a few hours later, I went down to their La Mesa offices, which I've driven by many times, but never actually seen up close. It's a big building, with lots of services available. I used the self-check-in kiosk on the first floor, and by the time I made it to the second floor, they were calling my name to see the doctor. The nurse took my vitals, put me in a room, and in about five minutes, I was chatting with the doctor. He didn't do much for me, but it's a cold, there's not much he could do (I only went because it's lasted so long, I wanted to make sure I wasn't developing pneumonia or anything). But he examined me and sent me on my way with a prescription and the latest propaganda from the fluids and rest industry. I waited about 35 minutes to fill my prescription, but that's reasonable enough during cold and flu season. I waited about the same amount of time yesterday when I got my blood work done, but I've already gotten the results of most of those tests (my cholesterol and blood sugar are normal). In fact, I've gotten about all the results except for my white blood count, which is the one that seems most relevant to my illness. So if any good came from my illness, I got to be somewhat reassured about having Kaiser, after being on Blue Cross for many years. I do feel foolish for not putting even the minimum amount in my health-care cafeteria plan at work, since I've already spent half of the minimum, and it's still January (my plan was to track my spending in '09 to see if it was worth signing up next year).

So up to now, 2009's been pretty unproductive; I go to work, and I take it easy the rest of the time. I have my resolutions for the new year, but the old stand-by, fitness, has had to go on the back-burner; I ran a few times right after the new year, when I was starting to feel better, but it's been awhile since I've had the energy to do that. My hope is I'll be healthy enough to run by this weekend, but time will tell. But I did a good job last year of getting back into a regular fitness regimen, and I intend to build on that progress in 2009, as soon as I'm feeling better. I'm being a bit unfocused this year, not aiming to run a marathon or anything, just to gain fitness and lose weight; to get myself into a position where I can set loftier goals in 2010. But to keep myself somewhat accountable, I'll say I intend to run an average of a mile a day. To run 365 miles in 2009. I don't have my log books in front of me right now, but I'm pretty sure I ran that far in 2004 or 2005. So that would basically be a return to when I was a regular runner. I'm quite confident I can pull that off.

I think my main resolution for 2009 is to get my financial house in order. Working part-time for a lot longer than I originally planned, things have gotten out of hand. I'm making good money now, but I'll still have to accept that I'll have to watch my pennies for a few months, at least, as I undo some of the damage. But this, too, should be a very easy resolution to keep. By June, I except my balance sheet to look much stronger than it does now. Especially if I keep my final resolution for the year: Get rid of my storage locker. That's just flushing money down the toilet. I spend $130 a month to store shit I don't want. I just have to box up all the little crap, then get some help taking the furniture to Goodwill (anyone know if AmVets will pick up from a storage locker?). That will probably be the hardest resolution to keep, but since it's just such a waste of money, I think I'll find the motivation to take care of it.