You know, I do love my job. My work is engaging and challenging and something which I have selected to do myself, not something that got pushed onto me. I have a great contract, I work with some really good people (even if it is in County government) and I’m learning new things all the time. It keeps me interested. I love that I’m getting to develop a program from the ground up.

Being my own boss is cool too. There are some hassles, yes, like dealing with the IRS and having actual employees and such, but overall it’s great. I believe that I’ve just run into the big downside though, and that entails not having negotiated myself any sick leave into this contract. I don’t know if it’s even possible to work sick leave or vacation into a contract, as the bigger companies with enough people to cover things like this on their own would beat me out in a bid if I tried.

I came home from hunting Sunday and found myself doubled over and slightly blacking out in the bathroom, out of thin air. I’d felt fine before. I recognized it; even if I no longer have a gall bladder, I sure to remember what passing a stone feels like. An hour of excruciating pain later and I thought I was OK. I dropped Seamus off at his dad’s house and ran a couple of errands. That night though, it felt like I’d been kicked in the liver by a mule. Reasonable, I thought, but the nausea and the fever were kind of coming out of left field. And the body aches all over; where were those coming from?

This was bad news; sounded like the flu on top of the gall stone crap. And I had an important training class to get to Monday evening, and a job for another customer to do that afternoon. I stayed home from my regular job, hoping to get over it, hating to miss the time. I finally called it around noon and rescheduled with my poor customer, who had to go give out new shut-off notices to his tenants, and with the class and the hotel.

When Tuesday morning rolled around and I almost lost my cookies in the shower, it was clear that I’d made the right call. Another day off, another day without pay. So this morning I made it through the shower and hauled my shaky, hot ass in to work. I’d been in a couple of hours, making progressively dumber mistakes, when the next earliest person came in. She said I looked pretty bad, and since they didn’t want to catch anything I just went on home. For the third day in a row. Fortunately, I don’t have anything major going on that the regular maintenance guy can’t handle, but I hate to not be there. It’s not only losing the pay, but this is my evaluation period and I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a slacker. Of course, passing out at my desk wouldn’t give a very good impression either. I managed to get my paycheck deposited in one bank, although I forgot to write out the check to myself for the other bank. Maybe this afternoon. And I stopped and got some soup, although walking through the grocery store with all of its food smells was a little challenging.

So I’m back in bed. I’ve run out of interesting things to read, but at least I have a laptop now so I can surf. It’s going to be a long month; no more leaving early on Fridays, I have time to make up.

Boo.