2004-09-20 - 2:16 p.m.

Our volunteer director has had quite possibly the worse sinus infection in the history of humanity for the past several weeks. Other than us all being very worried about him and him feeling like absolute shit and being in and out of doctor's offices and emergency rooms, this means that us seven volunteers have been without our fearless leader, and damn could we really use one nowadays.

The Atlanta Volunteers:

One dropped out two days prior to the year beginning. The other was hit by a car. It would be a month before she could travel. This month gave John (sinus infectio guy) some time to find another volunteer. He did. That would be Rolando. Kristin (hit by a car girl) came into Chicago a few days ago. Then Rolando came in, and went straight to the emergency room. He had gotten sick on the plane. They thought it was a potential heart attack, but now they're thinking it was food poisoning. He's been in the hospital for two days.

Chicago Volunteers.

I don't know if it's just stress, or if it's that I've not been eating properly of late, but I've spent more than a few days caught somewhere on the spectrum of not feeling great to being very dizzy and feeling decidedly bad. Janet, who I really don't like, is always, and I do mean always, going to get a prescription filled. Every other day at least. If I"m exaggerating, it is not by much. Suji's mom had a seizure a few weeks back and it turns out that she's been a closet alcoholic for a long time now. At the time of the seizure, her blood alcohol level was three times that of legal levels.

This is the year of diseases. And I feel it, almost constantly, when I'm at home.

This is going to be a great year for volunteering-- at least as far as work goes. I am so fucking optimistic about work this year that it is almost unnerving. Almost. Almost because all the signs point to it being a great year. It's really not just me looking on the bright side. This is going to be a fan-fucking-tastic year. At work.

At home, though, I can feel the sickness that pervades the volunteer house. We are going to have a hard time of community living this year. It seems as though everyone at the house struggles against community life happening. One person complains incessantly. About everything. She raises her voice to do it, offending everyone else. She has no tact. Plus, certain of her beliefs are um... questionable, being as how she's a racist and a believer in pre-Vatican II Catholicism. Another person cannot do anything without first getting someone else's approval. She is needy beyond reason and she is one of the most unhappy people I have ever met, but she wears a smile that doesn't extend to her eyes or her words, and she slinks around practically begging someone to hold her hand and say, "Janet, honey, your life is so hard. I pity you. I am amazed by your continued struggles. Tell me everything. Let me take care of everything for you. You just sit there and complain to your heart's content." And everything she complains about is so obviously her own fucking fault that I just can't bring myself to have any sympathy at all. Any. Suji walks on eggshells at home, feeling the problems but unwilling to make waves, and she leaves every weekend. She's always gone. She promised us she wouldn't do this, but she is. You can't build community if you're just not there. And Daena (who I love-- we've lived together a year already) is really falling into Queen Bee role and she never lets anyone finish a sentence and sometimes she just annoys the everliving hell out of me. And I've not been feeling great, and I've been bitchy for no reason and to no one in particular. Michele and Michael seem to be doing fine. They've got their problems with others, but they just let it roll right off of them, because that's how they are and I wish I wish I wish I could do that right now.

Why can't I do that right now?

That's supposed to be my strong suit. What's going on?

There's a sickness in the community this year. And I don't like it at all.

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