where the F@&! have u been?

That was the greeting that Sonia left on my Facebook wall this morning, Sonia having apparently forgotten the virtues of email. (True, I can't really talk.) It's a fair question, actually... A question that I have more or less been asking myself.

Sioux City continues to be a rather sizable disappointment. It's a living testament to why Wal-marts are a bad thing. Seriously, Micheal Moore should come here to shoot his next documentary on large-business centralization and the havoc that it can cause on the character of a town. After visiting the rather pathetic Sioux City museum, I picked up a few "walking maps" of the "historic" 4th and 6th streets. The fact that they are historic is really the only thing that is going for them, as every possible business has either closed or is in the process of closing as more and more people are getting into their cars and driving to the malls outside of town.

The social scene isn't much better. Walking home the other day, someone threw a rock or something at me while they were driving past. I keep falling on the ice and the bystanders keep watching with bored interest and no concern. Sarah pointed out that if we were 19 or had kids it might be different-- as things stand right now, people aren't quite sure what to do with us. And don't get me started on the dating scene. Since the men seem to have a tendency to knock their girlfriends up I have been sticking to girls, but all the lesbians here are catty, gossipy, and mean.

Another reason that I have been away is that work is hell. There is some sort of flu plague that has hit Sioux City and everyone and their grandmother seems to be landing on my floor at the hospital. I heard on NPR the other day that everyone who bothered getting a flu shot might have well been injected with water-- the strains that they predicted would strike this year were wrong and as a result we were all inoculated with the wrong dead virus. As a result, I've been forced to hand out about ten complete bed baths a morning as the hospital refused to crawl to a temp agency to give us a few more techs.

So, two years of nursing school (two years minus two months actually) and I am outta here. Sarah's trying to leave earlier then that-- she's a big help. I suggested that she dump her three year program and join me in my two year AAN program and get her BSN later and she just laughed at me.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you that wished me a happy b-day and demanded that I update my blog. I didn't think that my life was that interesting, and it's nice to know that you guys disagree.