A post in which I live through Dom Drop, with a little help from my friends

I woke up with no Epstein-Barr this morning, much to my surprise. I felt kind of sleepy, but otherwise fine.

I dropped at work today. I was expecting to. When I first started going to events, I started taking a 'drop' day off afterwards to give myself a chance to go through what we in the scene called Dom Drop. Dom Drop is what happens when you suddenly go back into the real world again after spending some time immersed in the kinky world. I kind of think of it as a reaction to having your tolerance for dealing with mass stupidity lowered and having to build it back up. If your head is on right in the scene, it effectively strips your bullshit away. You move much closer to your true self. The problems is that tu funtion in the real world, you have to have a protective layer of bullshit to help you deal with everyone else's bullshit. Miss Kat calls it “regaining your callus”. When I have described the 'nothing-is-right-and-everyfuckingthing-is-on-my-nerves' nature of the re-adjustment period to two friends of mine, they were like, “Oh yeah, sounds like bad PMS.” However you think of it, it can be tougher sometimes than others. I am prone to it. Yeah, act surprised.

The problem with scheduling Dom Drop is that it doesn't conveniently arrive when you schedule for it. What ended up happening on my vacation days was that I floated through my 'drop' day, and then didn't drop until I had to face the real world when I went back to work. I had decided to save a vacation day after SELF this year and just throw myself back into the fray. Perhaps not my best plan.

I was actually fine today when I first got in. I had lots to do, but I was prepped for that. I had two days of stupidity built up in email, but I dealt with that. I made some mistakes on my reports, but I fixed them (crabbily, but I fixed them). Then a vendor rep on-site sitting near me this week started going through this whole drama about her fucking headset.

She was working in our office this week, but had brought her headset from her home office to try to hook to her phone here. It wouldn’t work. Rather than just use one of ours, she enlisted the supervisor of the area and the IT department to help her get hers to work. In between one or another of them making yet another attempt, she would call people, put them on headset, and then spend 10-15 minutes going “Hello…..hello..…hello..…hello…..hello” over, and Over, and OVER again! Like, well maybe it didn’t work this time, but the fifty-thousandth time just might do the trick!! Moron. About the time I thought I was going to bust a gasket over that, I looked behind me at Terry (who was sitting right beside her), and gave her my “I am just about to be a guy on a rooftop with a rifle somewhere” look. Terry was also being driven insane. She just looked at me with a cute little smile and said “Steve, don’t take this the wrong way, but I love you.” Crisis averted. The rep herself was oblivious to all of this.

It was when I had a guy actually show up to my desk to debate his stupidity in person that I got a bit snappy. I had officially become Too Hateful To Live. I got back to work, and I was thinking that I could work fine if people would just leave me alone; but my spidey sense was telling me that I needed to call Miss Kat. She had told me to call her if I needed to today. I finally did. Bless her, she was in a worse place than I was! I talked to her for a little bit, trying to buck her up, but really I didn’t have much to spare today. I could tell she wanted off the phone, so we didn’t talk for very long. The rest of the morning passed fairly uneventfully. At lunch I thought only two more hours – I can do this.

Then I had a screamer on the phone this afternoon. A lot of what I do can pass for free therapy, but this woman had serious anger management issues. She didn't need therapy, she needed meds. By the time I finally ended the call (I had to just hang up - she was screaming incoherently) I felt brutalized. My head was both bloody and bowed.

By the end of the day, I was ready to crawl under a rock and stay there. But I knew what was going on, and many times self-awareness is all I need to pull me out of it. Nonetheless, I decided to get a treat for getting through the day without killing any of the people who so desperately needed it. I went to the freezer section, and they had Rum Raisin Ice Cream. I chose to see this as a Divine sign, and bought a pint.

About the time I got home and prepared to scoop myself a generous serving for supper, Miss Kat called to check on me. She had left work early and had some dana time and was feeling much better. She invited me over, and although I initially turned her down, I changed my mind during the course of the conversation. I felt so much better just from talking to her that I decided to scamper on over for a bit. A cheerful heart really doth doeth good like a medicine.

I returned home with a dramatic renewal of purpose, ate some rum raisin with a clear conscience, and turned in. Tomorrow is another day.