Today was hard. I want to use a lot of swear words but I’m being censored internally. Working a lot lately, trying to keep up with some big new work opportunities, that generate a hell of a lot of admin for us. So my life is currently gigs and admin with the occasional housework and sleep. Nowhere near enough sleep.

If we have the excitable ones out it works okay, they thrive under pressure and work like dogs. Today sucked however, it was freezing cold and wet. It was supposed to get warm and sunny but didn’t. We left our jumper home, so slowly chilled through the day. This is not at all good for pain levels with the fibromyalgia. Due to the weather there was hardly any work, which is emotionally exhausting. You’re on display the whole time and have to stay cheerful and friendly, even if the occasional nutty person treats you like scum (why is it some people think face paint should always be free?). There’s always some wonderful people which is usually enough to make the day worthwhile. But a 5 hour shift, very cold, in a lot of pain, for very little pay, and an hour and a half driving either side of it after a previous two days of work, pain, and sleep deprivation was too much today.

I also got into a conversation with someone who thinks face painting is easy money, and someone else was clearly a bit confused that I find the drive home really hard. It is so depressing some days to deal with the chronic pain and invisible disability, to be held to standards I can’t meet. More than depressing sometimes, triggering. We were rocking quietly the whole afternoon, a major warning sign, we’ve learned the hard way.

Between lots of coffee and more food than I wanted to eat I was able to get back down the freeway without having to slap myself on the face to stay awake like I had to the previous week. I got to Rose’s place where she was just waking up after her night shift to put on some dinner. We crashed into a shaking, weeping, exhausted, nauseated mess. It isn’t helping that Rose and I are both working hard and at different hours so most of the time we spend together one or both of us are trashed and sleeping on a couch. Dinner was beautiful, I’m so lucky to have a girlfriend who’s an amazing cook. Rose napped and I watched the box feeling like I had a javelin in my back. Crashed into a weepy conversation which was badly timed and going nowhere good, switched, played around a bit before Rose went off to work, then went hunting an open bottle shop because sometimes too much sobriety is bad for your health.

Adelaide is lousy for that, at only 10pm nothing was open except for a bottle shop in North Adelaide, which turned out to also be shut but hadn’t bothered to update it’s hours online. So, I came home with 4 litres of milk and a bag of salt and vinegar chips, which wasn’t what I had in mind. At home I raided my liquor supply, which considering my hopeless liver severely restricts my drink intake, is in pretty good shape, and decided the evening would look better through the bottom of a large glass of black sambuca and ice.

I was right. I’m now in bed, wearing an old jumper of Rose’s, with a kitten, watching Dirty Harry. I feel pissed off and sore, but a hell of a lot more stable. Nobody will be cutting tonight. Boots firmly on the ground.