when my hands hurt, my heart hurts
2004-08-04,

I really have to climb out of the dumps and post a real diary entry. But after writing and undoing three entries yesterday, I realize I lack the focus to complete a thought. That makes diary upkeep mighty difficult.

I awoke in the wee-small today, with the screaming hand pain. I had to get up and pull an ice pack out of the fridge so I could get back to sleep. I know that I could probably avoid that if I didn�t spend the evenings beading, and only used my hands for work. But what kind of a life is that? If I have to give up all of my pleasure and personality in service to the work, why am I even here? I do not have a job where the reward is in the work�in fact, I have a job where I desperately need to forget how evil it is by therapeutic activities such as beading and playing piano. And typing.

This company has destroyed me physically, and now it has set to work on my psyche.

Anyway. I am doing the beading thing again, because I do need the stress-relief. I did the little pink necklace last week, and I did a cobalt blue necklace over the weekend. Right now I'm working on a pastel blue long necklace with lavender accents. I'm using beads harvested from the $1 beady items (eyeglass chains mostly, and some anklets) I found at the drugstore. If you combine the beads from a couple of these into one necklace, you do pretty well for a couple of bucks expense.

We had some evil thunderstorms last night...I doped the dog, kissed Spouse goodnight, popped in "Sondheim: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall", and beaded my little heart out. It actually was kind of pleasant.

There. I actually wrote a couple of paragraphs that didn't mention my misery.