One damn thing over and over …

“It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay [source]

Every now and then I get the urge to write an entry here about what’s going on in my life, but the biggest challenge is picking a relevant title. It’s probably one of the biggest hurdles I have to sitting down and writing the entry – how stupid is that? Ugh.

Back in February 2010, the company I had been working for since February 2007 was acquired by another company. Previously, my benefits were through Aetna, but the new company’s benefits are through Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Turns out BC/BS’s mental health coverage is really lame, and my current witch doctors aren’t in-network. No big deal, just find new doctors, right? Riiiiight …

BC/BS’s online provider directory website is total crap because the data it uses is absolutely broken. In my searches, I found four or five physicians listed at the same address and phone number, but not in a group practice: when I called, it turned out the number was for a hospital. I’m guessing it was a hospital where these doctors had billed through previously. Either way, these search results are basically useless in trying to find a new physician whose practice is located near me, if the location the directory has isn’t where their practice is located!

Of course, leaving this to the last minute, I’ve run out of refills on my meds and I’m down to my last few doses. So, now I’m trying to find a new doctor with a totally useless provider directory, who is nearby and is taking new patients and can get me an appointment right away and not weeks from today, and will write me a new prescription that I can get filled, with no knowledge of my prior history which means I have to start explaining things all over again … argh!

I really want to get into a huge rant about work but I know I shouldn’t. I’ll just say that I’m not impressed at how things have unfolded. I don’t know how much opportunity there is for me to change things if I stay, especially since I’m only one person and everyone else just seems thankful to have a job regardless of how bad it gets. I don’t know if I can work in this new environment, or for how long.

Once I’ve decided for certain what I’m going to do and how I’m going to proceed, I might get into more detail … we’ll see.

I still have a gaping hole in the middle of the living room ceiling. I really don’t want to take the siding off the front of the house in order to try and fix this leak properly. I wish I had more friends who were handy and could help me out with this sort of thing. If I had to pay someone to do this, it wouldn’t be worth their while because the job is so small … so I’d end up getting overcharged, and I know it.

I need to fix a hose on the pool equipment so we can open the pool next month. It’s the section that connects the pool skimmer and drain to the pump basket. Not a huge task, but it means I need to go down to the pool supply place to pick up a short length of hose, an elbow and a coupler, and do the PVC glueing. At least I have a week or two before I really need to get this done.

2009 income taxes! I didn’t file yet, but luckily 12 counties in the state of NJ got automatic extensions until May 11 due to the storms. I’ve gone through most of the numbers so I’m almost ready to file, but I’d like to double-check everything one last time before I send it off … probably this weekend, sometime.

It’s interesting to me that more conversation happens in response to my posts over on LJ than they do on my own blog. I wonder … is it because my blog makes it difficult to comment? Is it because my blog readers are more passive? Is it because no one’s actually reading my blog? Are LJ users just more inclined to participate in conversation than the typical blog reader?