Pains in my butt

My butt hurts. Sorry for the lack of TMI heads up, but I'm more into whining than warning right now. Don't let anybody ever try to tell you that swimming isn't good for the glutes. My whole body is sore, actually. I guess this is what I get for skipping the gym four days in a row. Although the butt thing could also partly be because I haven't gotten out of my chair for at least two hours...

I've been spending most of those two hours moving old posts from my fiction blog to my new fiction Livejournal. I would explain here, but I'm already planning to explain at both of those other places, and I'm too sleepy and sore to explain it all a third time. Yes, sore butt does in fact make it difficult to type. Hush.

Tonight I'm meeting Tess for dinner and then we're going to see RENT. This has always been one of my favorite musicals, and I've only seen it once before (not counting the movie), so I'm not sure why I'm not really that excited about it. I think I might have outgrown the whole celebrating rebelliousness and individuality and diversity message of the show. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things, but I've reached a point in my life where I'm pretty comfortable embracing my homogeneous middle class mediocrity. I'm not sure how many years ago I saw the show last, but I'm pretty sure I was still in my twenties. At twenty-something, the bohemian lifestyle is a lot more attractive and romantic than it is at (not quite yet) thirty-five. Now it's more like, "Stop whining and get a day job! Grow up and take some responsibility for your life! Get off my lawn!"

But still, the music is awesome. I'm sure I'll be more psyched about it once I get there. I'm also sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that I haven't slept properly in days, thank you so much Daylight Savings Time.

Previously on Planet Earth...

I'm slowly -- oh so very slowly, because I'm doing it all from scratch, and it's a learning process -- building a new template for this blog. It's mostly for fun, and to teach myself what I need to know about building blogger templates that I didn't know five years ago, and so it's being done in my spare time, which doesn't happen very often. Maybe I'll finish it next month. Maybe I'll finish it next year. But I'm working on it, and when it's done, I'll be proud. For about two weeks until I get bored with it and decide to redo it all over again. Because that's how I roll.

Fizzgigg has a hole in his leg again. I don't know if I ever mentioned the first hole here, but last fall a sore on his front right elbow turned into a gaping, open hole through which you could actually see bone. It looks even grosser than it sounds, believe me. We bandaged it, we kept various ointments on it, we spent a large sum to have the vet sew it up only to have it open up again after the stitches came out, and finally, it closed up on its own and completely healed. And now, almost overnight, it's back. I got another tube from the vet of the post-op ointment that we were putting on it when it healed the last time, and we're keeping it clean and covered and hoping for the best. And Fizzgigg acts like it's the most traumatic thing ever when we change his bandage. This from a dog who was apparently kicked around before we got him, and who has fallen down stairs and chewed his own leg almost to the bone and broken limbs and once had a cat very nearly claw his eyeball out. He's a tough little guy, but man, he hates having to lie still and have his bandage changed.

He hasn't been in the greatest health lately, either. His thyroid is whacked out, and he's lost so much hair and weight that if you saw him and didn't know any better, you'd think we were like those scumbags on Animal Precinct who never feed or take care of their animals. Of course, once you saw his cushy digs, his food bowl that's constantly filled with expensive organic gluten-free dog food, his tiny sweater wardrobe and all of his various vitamins and meds, I'm pretty confident you'd know better. That dog lives better than we do. But he deserves it, because, see above. He's had a rough little life. I just wish we could get him healthy and keep him there.

Speaking of tiny sweaters, I finally sold one. Now I just have to make it. So that's what I'll be doing with my weekend. I need to find better beads than the one I used on Fizz's sweater, though, preferably ones that the silver doesn't rub off of when they come in contact with the yarn.

And that's what's happening in my world. Here's some of what happened elsewhere while I was resting my brain and morphing into a YouTube blog:

Remember when I mentioned that Tor was giving away free e-books in exchange for signing up to their newsletter? Apparently, this is just phase one in their re-branding project. The next phase will reportedly launch them into the social networking stratosphere and also offer original short fiction and non-fiction on the web site. The Nielsen Hayden's tend to be pretty awesome, so I expect good things from just about anything they put their collective hand to.

Did you know that George Romero made a new zombie movie? I sure didn't, and I'm not sure how I missed it. Speaking of zombie movies, did I ever mention Fido? It's no Sean of the Dead, as zombie comedies go, but it has its moments, some of which are surprisingly poignant.

The Indiana Jones trailer has already been all over the internet, but it's squee-worthy enough to post again.

Ditto the fact that CBS is offering free streaming videos of the entire run of Star Trek: TOS.

And that's all I've got. Hasta, pasta.

I sure am glad I got that flu shot. >:|

I'm having one of those cranky-sleepy-funky Super ADD days wherein I can barely keep my eyes open, let alone focus on anything for more than two minutes at a time. Good times all around. I don't know why I feel so tired--I got plenty of sleep last night, or at least no less than I usually get. I really, really hope this isn't a sign that I'm coming down with the ubiqui-flu that it seems everyone's getting these days. Like I hope the bought of chills I had earlier also isn't a sign.

I'm downing Airborne (pink grapefruit flavor! Yum) and plugging along, but nothing non-essential is going to get done today.

Boo.

But mostly downs.

This week has chock-full of ups and downs. It started with the birth of my new nephew (number 5!), and will end with Fizzgigg getting tested for hyperthyroidism--and possibly thyroid cancer. I'm trying not to think too much about that last part until and unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

Add to that the focus issues I've been having, and the overwhelmingly-even-under-normal-conditions huge project I got handed this week, and you can see that even if I had TIME to blog for fun, I'm not exactly feeling up to it. So I hope you'll excuse me a brief absence from this space. I'm sure you will. I know y'all really just come here for the pretty.

Thank God it's...you know.

We got our power back on last night, for which the entire Bauhaushold is thrilled beyond measure. Man, what a crazy week. Scratch that--what a crazy couple of months! Fainting, food poisoning, NaNo, Killer Ice Storms and massive blackouts...it's no wonder I'm exhausted. And now we've got snow headed our way, with a lot of people--family members included--still with no power. Between that and the fact that I can't remember the last time I saw sunshine, I'm going to stop fighting it and give myself permission to feel a little down.

Blogging is going way down on my priority list until the end of the year. I'm gonna rethink, regroup, maybe even redesign, and start afresh in January. Until then, expect posting both here and at Growing Up to be sporadic, or possibly even non-existent.

I'll probably keep up a little better with the writing blog, and with my Live Journal. Feel free to friend me over there if you want to read all my personal blather.

I hope y'all have a good, warm, safe weekend. Maybe send some prayers and good thoughts over here to the middle of the country. We sure need it.

Old Man Winter hates us.

Ever see that Y2K episode of King of the Hill, wherein Hank stops at Mega-lo-mart to pick up a fuel filter and gets overwhelmed by hordes of hoarders stocking up for the impending apocalypse? That's pretty much what it was like when I braved the ice and falling trees yesterday to venture out to Wal-Mart to buy a flashlight and some extra batteries. Both of which, by the way, were completely sold out by the time I got there. After weaving my way through crowds of shoppers whose baskets were brimming over with bottled water, canned foods and the aforementioned flashlights and batteries--and just how many flashlights does a single household really need, anyway?--I managed to get out of the store and, about a half-hour later, out of the parking lot, after which I had to hit three other stores before I finally found some D-cells for our Maglite.

So, winter decided to puke up its icy innards all over our part of the state over the weekend, destroying a small rain forest's worth of trees and causing the biggest power outage in state history in the process. Our house has been without power since late Sunday night, and estimates are that we'll be without it for another week, at least. Of course, my workplace still has power, and thankfully so does my gym, so I was able to take a hot shower and get dressed in a well-lit locker room this morning. My husband and the rest of my family aren't as fortunate. But they don't have to go to work, either, so it's a fair trade.

We actually made out pretty good in this storm. Most of the trees in our yard are either broken or completely knocked over, but all of the falling trees and limbs missed the house and our vehicles. Most of our neighbors weren't so lucky, and are dealing with everything from dented car roofs and broken windows to caved in garages and trees of the non-Christmas variety taking up valuable space in the living room.

'Tis the season to count our blessings, for sure. I guess I could whine that I'll miss the season finale of Top Model and a new episode of Supernatural this week, but I'd probably be better off shutting it and just being grateful that we have an intact roof over our heads and a working fireplace and plenty of canned soup on our shelves. You only really appreciate the basics in life when you're forced to go without the luxuries. Moreso when you realize how many folks out there can't even count on the basics. It's both sad and cliche, but also true.

I think I forgot how to blog.

I think I also forgot how to do Christmas. I seem to be in denial that the Christmas season is here. I have yet to make a single list, for gifts, cards, or otherwise, and no idea what I'm going to get anybody, or for that matter even what I hope to receive. I don't have any Christmas knitting projects going because I'm still working on that dagnab sweater I started way back in July for my sister's birthday (this is why I don't often do sweaters). Christmas exploded all over my mother's house, with red and/or green and/or twinkly colored lights and/or faux-pine garlands and bows and wreaths and/or nativity sets and/or shiny Santa figurines everywhere you look. But upstairs, our part of the house is such a chaotic mess that the only reason any Christmas decorations are up is because we never got around to taking them down from last year, and they've pretty much faded into the background of our perception by now.

And the thought of Christmas shopping makes me want to crawl into bed and sleep until St. Patrick's Day.

I wouldn't say it's holiday depression or even ennui--it's just not sinking through my thick skull that Christmas is here already. It feels too soon. It feels like summer just ended. It's still relatively warm here, even, at least for the most part. All of this Christmas-ness surrounding me feels surreal and out of place, and it's making ME feel surreal and out of place.

Maybe this is just what happens when you keep your head buried in your own novel for all of November. Maybe I just need to go get a peppermint latte and listen to some Christmas carols and watch Rudolph and drink some 'nog and get acclimated to the fact that 2007 is practically over already. Maybe I need to go home and plug in the Christmas lights that have been hanging unlit all year.

I mean, it's December already, you guys! When did that happen?

Things that are most excellent

1. Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper. It's like a fizzy orgasm in your mouth.

2. Having a short Christmas list and the funds to cover it.

3. Slow work days.

4. Free fancy Blogger templates.

5. Pretty toenails. Not that I have those right now.

6. WINNING NANOWRIMO OMGBBQETC!!!!!

Things that are not good

1. Undercooked bratwurst

2. Food poisoning

3. Dysentery!

4. Mothers and husbands arguing over the best course of action while you're busy DYING OMGZ!

5. Neighbors who come out to gawk at you while you're being loaded into an ambulance

6. Another Sunday spent in the ER

7. Knowing all of the above could have been avoided with one lousy trip to the microwave

And no, I'm not pregnant.

Yes, I'm sure. They tested for that, too. So everybody can stop asking me that now, plzkthnx.

He'p me! I feel faint!

So the other morning I passed out in my bathroom and face-planted in the towel rack, and spent the rest of the day in the ER hooked up to an IV and an EKG and getting poked and prodded and scanned and losing every last shred of my dignity. And how was YOUR weekend?

The upshot is that I'm fine, albeit pretty battered from the fall. I spent the last couple of days sacked out on pain meds and recovering, and today is all about catching up and getting back into the swing of things. I'll have Halloween linkage, etc. coming soon, although I'll probably be skipping the boyfriends this week.

And just in case y'all didn't know: morphine is fun stuff.

Take THAT, Infuenza!

So, about half an hour ago I got a flu shot, and now my shoulder hurts like a hurty thing, and my fingers are tingly and going numb. I seem to recall similar happenings last year, and my arm didn't fall off back then, so it's all good, I guess?

Ow.

Mmmm, cake

Yesterday was our first anniversary. In celebration, we chose to honor a seemingly inexplicable yet long-standing tradition and share a bite of our left-over wedding cake, which barely survived the long, hot drive home from Eureka Springs before getting crammed into the back of my mom's freezer and all but forgotten for an entire year.

Yum, right?



So we popped open the champagne (which we also bought last year, and after failing to get around to drinking it on our wedding weekend (I know, right?! But we had all kinds of champagne given to us that weekend, so...) we decided to save it for said anniversary) and, after a brief but hearty toast, we lifted our forks, kissed each other for luck, and took our obligatory bites of year-old, partially melted and then frozen, freshly thawed wedding cake.

Now for those of you who are as skeptical about the wisdom of this tradition as we were, let me just tell you this:



We ate the whole thing, and we liked it.

That Eight Things Meme

Over at Growing Up..., I got tagged to provide 8 obscure details about myself. I don't know how obscure some of them are to longtime readers of this blog, but still, there might be something new and interesting over there.

You damn kids with your baggy pants and your mosh pits

True confessions time: in my entire youth, I never attended a rock concert. Yes, I know. The only thing that could render me less cool at this point is if I were to tell you the sorts of things I was allowed to go to instead, but I think I've lost enough coolness points for one post, so suffice to say that the closest thing to a genuine rock concert I managed to attend as a sheltered youngster was a Richard Marx concert. Even then, there was assigned seating, and besides, Rich can sing a mean ballad, but he doesn't exactly inspire one to risk life and limb crowd surfing.

Needless to say, none of this prepared me for last Tuesday night, when my husband took me to see 311.

Now, my husband is a little more world weary and wise in the way of these things, so I trusted him completely when he wanted to get there two hours early to stand in line so we could be assured of a spot close to the stage. And, despite the fact that 311 is not, like, my favoritest band ever, I shared his joy when we found ourselves standing second row center. We did worry that there might be trouble from the groupie in front of us, who, being a large, balding guy who was at least our age and who managed to find profound meaning in 311's lyrics by which to instill his life with meaning was the antithesis of the image that the word "groupie" generally conjures up; and who, besides shamelessly and drunkenly groping every sweet young thang that made the mistake of trying to sidle up next to him in order to be closer to the band, got in our faces a few times to demand that we be more exuberant about the impending and, obviously, life-changing AWESOMENESS of being only moments away from having 311 on stage just a few feet in front of us. But as it turned out, once the show started, that guy was the least of our worries.

You guys, I've seen rock concerts on TV, and not just fictional ones. I've seen actual concert footage. I thought this clued me in pretty well on what to expect, and I thought I could handle it. I was so terribly wrong, on both counts.

The band came out. Groupie Guy was so excited I thought he might have an aneurysm, but his excitement was soon matched by the rest of the crowed, all 500 or so of whom tried to rush the stage at once, while simultaneously trying to force room in the middle of the crowd, which is where we were, to start a mosh pit. One second I'm standing there relaxed and happy, with a drink in one hand and my husband's arm in the other, "Whooo!"-ing and getting jazzed to enjoy some good music, and the next I'm literally swept off my feet, trying to pry strangers' elbows out of my ribs and create enough room to breathe and keep from losing my shoes and my husband and protect my face from getting burned on the end of the joint the guy next to me just lit up and my head from getting kicked by one of the damn kids getting passed around overhead, all at the same time, and oh, by the way, now I'm wearing my drink, and pretty much getting battered against my husband's crutches. I'm also having a full-on panic attack. I manage to look around to see if anybody is actually enjoying this, and the damn kids all around me are laughing and going with the flow and managing to have a perfectly good time, and I burst into tears and think I just might literally die if I don't get out of there.

Thankfully, this was about the same instant when my husband managed to grab me by the waist and shout for me to follow him, and he used his crutches to pretty much whack a path for us to get the hell out of there. We got to the side of the room, on the much more mellow edge of the crowd, and I couldn't stop crying, and he wanted to know if somebody groped me or assaulted me, and finally I was able to calm down and tell him that I was just freaking out and that I'd be okay. Miraculously, I managed not to lose either of my flip-flops in that mess. Less miraculously, he realized he'd lost his phone.

So now he was the one freaking out and I was the one trying to calm him down. We eventually settled on a plan to wait out the concert and then call his phone once everybody left and, assuming it didn't get picked up and taken, or crushed in all of the moshing, we could just follow the sound of the ring tone. We moved to the back of the room and managed to mellow out and enjoy the rest of the concert, which I must say, was pretty tight, and 311 sounds every bit as good live as they do on CD. Incidentally, our new vantage point turned out to be pretty good for people watching, and especially for watching people get bounced.

Finally, the concert ended. We hung back as most of the crowed filed, staggered, or, in a few cases, got dragged out, and finally the floor was clear enough to allow for the possibility of finding our phone. As I went to search, though, the bouncers made me leave. Husband told them about our lost phone, and they pretty much told him these things never get recovered. Either the phones get pulverized, or they get stolen. Husband was somewhere between angry and despondent over losing all of his pictures when I decided to try calling it one more time. This time, one of the bouncers answered it. Someone had picked it up and thrown it at his head during the concert, and he pocketed it. Another miracle! Kinda.

So that's my first big rock concert adventure, and, most likely, it's my last. I think the moral of this story is that we're just too old for this sort of thing. There might also be a moral in there somewhere about being sure to experience these things while you're still young enough to fully enjoy them, but really, I think teenage me still would have been too old and crotchety for this sort of thing. The other moral is, of course, never wear flip-flops in a mosh pit. And don't keep your phone in your front shirt pocket, because it surely won't stay there.

That's a lot of life lessons to pack into one evening. I'm exhausted now just recounting them. Now pull up your pants and get off my lawn.

Zuh

I woke up this morning with the mother of all neck cricks, extending down into my shoulder and making it impossible to do the little things, like turning my head or lifting my right arm or moving at all, without becoming nauseated and nearly blacking out from the pain. Good times.

Despite this, I tried to soldier on. I dragged myself into the shower, thinking that the hot water would loosen up my muscles a bit, and ended up huddled in the bottom of the bathtub, my head propped up on the side, the shampoo still in my hair dripping into my eyes, where I did my best to stay conscious and not cry or throw up, praying and wondering how in the world I was going to get out of the shower by myself, and not being able to muster the strength to shout for my husband to wake up and come help me.

Eventually, I managed to sit up and rinse my hair and then drag myself out of the shower, into some clothes, and down the stairs to the community kitchen. I've done this whole weird dizziness and near-blackout thing before, and eating usually helps [note to self: ask doctor about low blood sugar]. I had to take a lot of sitting down breaks on the way, but somehow, I got myself a glass of milk, then fell down into a comfy chair and curled up with my milk until all of the dizziness and stomach ishiness went away.

Not a fun way to start the morning, lemmetellya.

Despite all that, I was only ten minutes late to work (yes, I came to work. I wanted to call in sick, but I have a big job to handle today, and I didn't feel right about pawning it off on CAG unless I absolutely had to). Of course, I had to bring my makeup with me and put it on once I got here, and my hair's pretty hopeless; but I'm here. I'm still feeling pretty weak, and my neck and shoulder still hurt like a hurty thing, but at least it's not nausea-inducing pain anymore, and the dizziness seems to be of the past. I think I'm going to survive.

Ow.

O HAI. I HAS A WURK.

Apologies for the slow turn the blog has taken lately. Work is busy (not in the "OMG everybody needs me NOW how'mIgonnadothis" kind of way, but in the actually having time to clear some of the neglected piles of non-urgent stuff off of my desk and out of my inbox way--it's nice), and the novel's going great--which, if it's going at all, that's pretty great right there--and between the two, I have very little time or mental energy left for blogging. Don't worry, I'm sure it won't last.

On a completely unrelated and random note: I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? is a great tool for whenever you need to scrub out a disturbing mental image. "Oh my Lord that's disgust--oh, lolkitties! Ha ha!"

Speaking of meditating on not-impure things (oh, come on. What's more good and pure than fluffy kitties?), any Christians in my modest little readership might enjoy reading Internet Monk, a Christian School teacher who's got some thoughtful, thought-provoking, and downright soul-convicting things to say about the state of post-modern evangelicalism. His entire blog's a good read. And he's got a podcast, too!

KAE BAI!

Et Cetera: Holiday Highlights

The construction crew was at it bright and early this morning, pounding their little hearts out. They're still at it, although at least for the time being they've moved down a little from the window outside my cube and the banging's slightly muffled. Thank God for small favors.

Welcome back, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend, long or otherwise.

Mine was spent, among other things, getting my dog checked out at the vet, looking at rental houses, and catching up on the remainder of the 2006-07 television season on the TiVo.

Fizzgigg went in for a teeth cleaning, but was found to have an infection, and was instead sent home with about two weeks' worth of antibiotics, and I was sent home feeling like a neglectful mother and complete dumbass for assuming his lethargy and weight loss were simply due to old age and not getting him checked out sooner. Since his medicine's kicked in he's been acting like his old self again, and I think he put about two pounds back on over the weekend. Let that be a lesson to us all: don't assume your pets are just old when they start going downhill. Get them checked out. It could be something fixable. [/PSA]

Husband and I checked out a couple of rental houses on Friday, and one of them appeared to have a lot of move-in potential. We couldn't see the inside because it was getting ready to undergo a paintjob, but from what we saw of the outside, we're definitely going to go back and view the interior once it's ready to show.

The other highlight of our weekend was a late night walk we took on Saturday, during which we got to watch an entire brood of baby foxes frolic around the empty lot across from our boarding house while their parents skulked and kept a watchful eye on us from the bushes. The sight could have given Cute Overload a run for its money. What I would have given to have a video camera with night vision, but alas, I didn't even have so much as my camera phone on me, so you'll have to take my word for it: SO CUTE!!!

Otherwise, I spent the weekend being as lazy as possible while still getting enough of my share of the household chores done to get us by another week, reading, and watching a lot of movies and TV, all of which I'll write up in detail later today. For now, I'm feeling quite refreshed from all the rest, and ready to take advantage of the muffled pounding to hunker down and get some work done.

I only have time for a quickie

~ I'm busy, I'm burned out, and I need a vacation.

~ I'm thinking about seeing if I can switch to the every other Friday off program. I'm putting in the necessary long hours throughout the week anyway, and I'm confident people would still mostly leave me alone to write first thing in the morning even if I'm on the clock. I think getting an extra day added to my weekend every other week would go a long, long way toward curing my burnout.

~ I'm also thinking about seeing if Matt's willing to use part of our tax refund to finance a long weekend in Eureka Springs. Because if I don't get a change of scenery and a weekend that's not mainly about doing laundry and cleaning up pet poop soon I'm very likely to snap and hurt somebody.

~ Other things I'm thinking about:

• Becoming an Avon rep. I figure I can sell it here at my office (we seem to be currently lacking an Avon Lady) and earn some extra money to throw at the credit cards--assuming I don't succumb to temptation and take too much advantage of the seller's discount. Anybody have any experience with this?
  
  
• Jumpstarting Growing Up Money. I didn't mean to abandon it, but I did think about killing it and just re-opening the finance topic here. I don't think I want to kill it, though. If work will let up enough to let me, I'll infuse some life over there again.
  
  
• Reshuffling the whole blog-website network. But again, until my workload lets up a little, that's a laughable notion. HA HA! See? Laughable.

~ I have TV thoughts, but I doubt I'll get around to writing them up today.

~ I have to pee.

~ Okay, here's one TV thought: Boo, Dreamz!

~ I'm slow on the uptake, but I just discovered the customizable Google homepage, and I'm in love with mine now that I've got it all tricked out. It has seriously streamlined how I waste time on the Internet and made me way more productive at my procrastination.

~ I'm going to go pee now.

Tired again. But not too tired to beg a favor.

I had to stay late to get another huge construction drawing order out last night, which was the second such night in a row, so I'm feeling pretty worn out right now. Trusty Pedometer said I walked/jogged/stair-climbed the equivalent of 5(!) miles in the course of getting them done yesterday afternoon. Who needs the gym when you've got semi-hard labor?

Of course, I wouldn't be nearly so tired today if I hadn't stayed up to watch Lost. I'm glad I did, though, because it was co-written by my old Mutant Enemy boyfriend Drew Goddard, and it was good, and provided some actual answers, and featured actual communication between some of the characters. How novel! It even managed to genuinely creep me out for a minute there, which I don't think it's done since the first season. Well done, Drew! Not that you'll ever read this or even know who I am.

***

Fan-ficcers, I need a favor, and it's a shallow one: I keep getting review notifications from Elysian Fields. As much as I insist on leaving my fanficcing days behind me and moving on, I'm still a shallow praise whore, and if somebody's saying something nice about my writing, I'd like to be able to read it. Trouble is, this here Net Nanny has begun to spank me whenever I try to do so. Seems it finally figured out that site contains a shameful amount of vampire pr0n. I would appreciate it muchly if somebody would go over there and copy the reviews from the last couple of months for Butterfly Effect and Dead Leaves and paste them somewhere I can get to them, such as in an e-mail, or even right here in the comments.

Toe-fungus or chair butt?

I was supposed to go to the gym today. It would have been my first time there in over a week. I came to work this morning with my gym bag and plenty of good intentions in tow.

But the thing is, you guys? I hate the gym. Seriously.

It's not the exercise I hate. It's not the getting sweaty or the soreness I inevitably feel the next day. It's just the gym. I feel terrible about this, since it's (*points out window and down the street*) right there and it's free, but I just can't bring myself to go over there. I don't know. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe if not for days and days of rain and gloom and thunderstorms, I'd be able to take having to wade through puddles left by drippy seniors to find an empty locker and manage to change without getting my socks wet and go work out on equipment that's been sweated on by dozens of strangers to then take a shower in a breeding ground for toe fungus, all while enduring snotty, judgmental looks from twenty-year-old Barbie dolls. But I'd rather not, if I don't have to.

So I'm embracing my hatred of the gym. Sooner or later I'm sure the guilt will become heavy enough to motivate me to suck it up and go, but for now... no. Just, no.

I will, however, work in exercise where I can throughout the day so that I'm not a total slob. Gotta combat that chair butt somehow.

In other health news, I finally got over myself enough to call a doctor and make an appointment for a checkup. Not counting Urgent Care or my OBGYN, I haven't been to a doctor since I got laid off from Ye Olde Oile Companye and lost my health coverage six years ago. Considering that I've had a steady job with great health insurance for an entire year now, that excuse no longer cuts it. Matt's been wanting to check out the doctor sister of one of his friends, so I tracked her down yesterday and made an appointment. If she works out, then I guess she'll be our new family physician, but either way, the good news here is that I can get started back on thyroid medication again. And maybe if I can get my metabolism straightened out and functioning properly, I won't have to work so gorram hard to keep from gaining weight. Wouldn't it be nice not to even have any need for the stinky, sweaty, drippy, fungusy gym?

Yes. Yes it would.

B. It's the second letter. It comes after A.

These damn kids today.

Not you. If you're reading this and you're a damn kid, then I'm sure you're the bright, talented, knowing how to spell and alphabetize things exception.

But twice this week--Twice! In one week! And at two different stores!--I've gone to pick up an order at a store and had to wait ten minutes or more because they couldn't find it because whoever filed my stuff away couldn't alphabetize properly. This first happened at the comic shop when I went to pick up my subscription, and the poor kid at the counter spent about twenty minutes searching under the counter, in the back, and on the racks for my comics when he couldn't find any evidence that I even have a subscription. Finally, he found my comics in the subscription box under "G." I don't even know where they ended up finding my prescription at the pharmacy last night. I only know that every single person back there looked too young to be working a pharmacy counter. Don't you have to have some kind of advanced schooling to become a pharmacist?

I just hope those kids weren't the ones actually filling the prescriptions.

Lessons From the School of Hard Knocks

Things I learned the hard way this weekend:

1. Trying to substitute giant inflated bouncy balls for actual balance balls is a REALLY BAD IDEA.

2. Giant inflated bouncy balls go BOOM really loudly when they explode and drop you on your supersized ass.

3. Trying to razor cut your own bangs with a dull blade is an EVEN WORSE IDEA.

4. I am not a hat person.

In related news, I have to buy my nephew a new bouncy ball. Also, I now have Mary Alice bangs. Does this mean I have to do the cake dance?

Yet more exhausted whininess.

According to my trusty pedometer, yesterday I walked the equivalent of three miles in the course of getting my work done. In high heels, I might add. No wonder I was so ready to collapse. Sheesh.

Speaking of collapsing, this morning I can barely hold my head up, I'm so sleepy. I actually had to put it down on my desk for a few minutes just now. It's my own fault--being so tired last night, I had every intention of going to bed nice and early, but I was so close to finishing my book, and then since I was up anyway I figured I might as well go ahead and watch Lost, and then I woke up in the middle of the night with a coughing fit and the only cough suppressant in the house was Nyquil... so, yeah. Very sleepy. Also, I ran out of ginseng a few days ago and have been too lazy/tired to stop by the store and pick up more, and by now it's all out of my system, so I don't even have fake herbal-induced energy. Did I mention the part where I have hypothyroidism and I'm not taking any meds for it and the ginseng is pretty much where all of my energy comes from?

Seriously, once the things are done that I put off yesterday because I was just too tired to deal, I might just go home. In the mean time, caffeine is SO TOTALLY my BFF.

*thud*

That's the sound of me dropping from sheer exhaustion.

Today was supposed to be fairly low-key, with a semi-hectic morning of meeting set-up segueing into a quiet afternoon of most of my project team attending said meeting and me taking it easy and catching up on filing between getting up to go refresh the bottled water supply. But somehow some of the stragglers who aren't in on the big-ass client meeting are managing to keep me running my buns off with FedEx shipments and copies and paperwork prep. Is it any wonder I'm stuffing my piehole full of catered deli goodness at every opportunity?

Speaking of which, dear Lord, this here brownie is delicious.

I'm a wee bit on the irritable side, since I still don't feel that great and I really just want to sit down. Actually, I'd like to go lie down and take a nap, but at this rate I'll take sitting for more than five minutes at a time. Whinging aside, I'm actually feeling a bit better today than yesterday (and definitely better than Monday), but I'm still feeling pretty run down. I'm starting to think that perhaps, in retrospect, taking yesterday off to rest would have been an exercise in wisdom, but it's a bit late to do anything about it now.

In more chipper news, I called Citibank and got them to lower the interest rate on my credit card by 2%. I've put off doing this for years, because I always just assumed they'd say no, and that I'd have to fight with them; but I just asked, and they said "Sure! We can lower it by this much," and I said "Cool!" and it all took about two minutes, and now that's 2% more of my monthly payment that will go toward actually paying down my balance. It also happens to be .5% less than I was trying to get with the Prosper loan, so that works out pretty well, except for the part where I feel like a massive eedjit for not simply asking them to lower it sooner.

But seriously, you guys, I'm so tired. I don't know how I'm going to get through the rest of this day.

Failure to launch

We were all set to call and make an appointment to look at that duplex I linked last week when Matt, being a bit more patient and cautious about these things than I, remembered a couple of things we still need to take care of before we move, and also pointed out that, as much as our current living situation sucks, it's also cheap, and we really should take advantage of it for as long as we can stand and save more money. I pointed out in turn that the rising gas prices and the cost of my daily commute are cutting pretty deeply into our "savings" and that we'd save enough in that and other areas that it will all come out in the wash, but he's right that we need to get some stuff done before we get down to the business of finding a new place. Said "stuff" includes...

Consolidating our debts. After my Prosper request fell through I decided to try for a bank loan instead of re-listing with Prosper, but I haven't gotten around to applying yet. Which is dumb, because a consolidation loan would save us a lot of money. I'm aiming to visit my bank and fill out an application this week.

Selling Matt's truck and buying a second vehicle that runs. Pretty necessary, because Tulsa's public transit system sucks beyond the telling of it, he's not willing to get up early to drive me to work in the mornings so he can have the car all day any more than I'm willing to be stuck here and unable to go anywhere on my lunch hour, and I'm reasonably certain that my mom won't let us bring her minivan with us to Tulsa so he can keep driving it to school. Long story short (too late!), we need two cars.

Applying for disability. This is something Matt should have done years ago, but he was under the impression that since he was still working, albeit part-time, he didn't qualify. But I'm pretty sure that if anybody ought to qualify for disability insurance, it's a one-legged diabetic, and anybody who doubts that should spend a week getting around on crutches and see how physically exhausting it is, and then imagine doing that every day for years with no relief in sight, and THEN factor in a chronic illness and what that does to your energy levels under the best of circumstances. Not to mention that until he finishes school there's not a whole lot he's qualified to do that doesn't require a certain amount of physical dexterity. Heck, even MY job involves almost as much hauling heavy stacks of paper around the building as it does sitting on my butt and typing, and although I'm sure he could do it just fine as long as he had a sturdy cart, it might prove a challenge convincing an HR rep in charge of hiring that it wouldn't be a costly problem. At any rate, I'm sure it goes without saying that if he qualifies, even if it's only for a couple hundred a month, it will be a big, big help.

Summer break is almost here (Matt's final finals are today, as a matter of fact), and Matt's promised to use his down time to take care of his part of the above. So as much as I despair of being stuck in crowded relative boarding house, $50 a week commute Hell for a few more months, at least we've got some forward momentum. That should launch us out of here sooner or later. Right?

Please, oh Lord, let me be right.

"As long as there's, y'know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll."

We were at Best Buy on Saturday when Matt asked me if I'd seen This Is Spinal Tap. When I confessed that I hadn't (I've seen bits and pieces, but never sat down to watch the entire thing), he decided to buy it, but before we made it to the register, he re-decided that it wasn't something he needed to spend money on right now, and put it back. And then he spent the rest of the weekend lamenting that decision. So when the fates decided to reward him for his financial responsibility by showing said film last night on VH1 Classic, of course we had to watch it. All of which means that I TiVo'd Heroes and likely won't get to see it until Saturday, so please don't spoil it for me.

(We actually had a minor "You love Heroes more than me!" row last week after I got irritated with him for talking over it while I was trying to watch, so I didn't dare blow him and his movie off in favor of my show this week. Spinal Tap was pretty funny, though, so it wasn't that great a sacrifice.)

Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat, and by Monday morning it had grown into a sore throat with ear ache, headache, everything-else-ache, and absolutely no energy whatsoever. I knew there was nothing pressing happening at work, so I didn't really see the point of dragging myself into the office just to sit there and feel miserable and possibly spread my contagion beyond the borders of my cubicle, so I took a sick day and went back to bed for about five hours. When I woke up again I felt marginally better, and spent the rest of the day (minus the two hours of watching Spinal Tap) camped out on the sofa reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, which has gotten very exciting in the second half and has become excruciatingly hard to put down. I'm now only about 150 or so pages from the end. I wanted to stay up to finish it last night, but I was just too darn tired, so I went straight to bed after the movie. I also let myself sleep in this morning (i.e., didn't come in early to write). Between all the rest, drinking plenty of fluids, etc., I'm back to functional today. I was a little tempted to call in sick again anyway just so I could finish my book, but I didn't. Obviously.

In other me news, I promised Matt that if he got me strings for my guitar and put them on, I'd start learning to play it again. He bought the strings on Saturday, so we're halfway there. I also started knitting a guitar strap for it. It's punky black and purple stripes. It won't really go that well with my folksy acoustic, but maybe that will encourage me to hurry up and get good enough to earn myself something a little more rock & roll, like the totally girly-punk Hello Kitty! guitar I saw at the shop where we bought the strings. Me wantses.

Finally: Hie thee and watch this trailer for Stardust, which is loaded with awesome. I can't wait for this movie.

At least there's a reason for all this wackiness.

This morning's shot. I got in early, but instead of writing I flitted from distraction to distraction and got not a single word written. Unless you count the e-mail I sent to a Craigslister advertising a really cute, recently renovated 2 bedroom duplex in one of our target neighborhoods, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count.

The upside is that some of my distractions involved job-related tasks, so I can charge that hour and get some overtime. Overtime is good.

Here are some random links I came across in my scatterbrained wanderings this morning.

Joss talks of Angel: Season 6. Two thoughts make that three: one - Eeeeee!; two - I don't normally go in for non-canonical Whedonverse comics, but now I have to get Spike: Asylum; and three - that shot at the bottom of the article always chokes me up. Always. *sniffle*

The Fantasy Writer's Exam (via Miss Snark). Test your book to see if it's yet another a Tolkein ripoff. Mine passes (or maybe it fails? I'm not sure what the perspective is there), probably mostly by virtue of being an urban fantasy. So it's more of a Gaiman/Whedon/Butcher ripoff, really.

Isn't this a cute duplex?

***

Update from about an hour later, because I got distracted and busy and forgot to hit "publish," which should tell you a little something about the kind of day I'm having.

I must be PMSing. Exhibit A: Yesterday on the drive home, my regular radio station wouldn't come in for some reason, so I switched over to the news (our CBS station comes in on the radio here; I have no idea if that's universal), and apart from bawling over a segment the local news did on a VA Tech victim from Tulsa, when it went to national news and Katie Couric started talking about Iran becoming a nuclear power, I very nearly had a panic attack. It was the same kind of tight-throated, constricted breathing, sick stomach, scared poopless feeling I used to get when I was a kid at the height of the Cold War and we lived in fear of The Button and our teachers made us watch The Day After and write reports on it and ensured we wouldn't get any more peaceful sleep that year. Which was, I admit, a little over the top, and not really my normal reaction to that kind of news, and I think that's a pretty good indicator of PMS right there.

But if that's not enough, I give you Exhibit B: CAG called in sick (again) this morning. I have a ginormous drawing package going out this evening that will likely take up most of my day (and probably get me another hour or two of overtime tonight), and now I'm also responsible for whatever her team's got going on today. Sure enough, one of her people called to tell me he's also got a major drawing issue going out today. I didn't quite have a panic attack that time, but I did very nearly have a meltdown, and after I hung up the phone I had to put my head in my hands and sit that way for a while, taking deep breaths and willing myself not to cry. Also an admitted overreaction.

I managed to pull myself together, by the way, and when I mentioned it to one of my project teammates he reassured me that the other team's drawings and distribution lists are really small compared to ours, and that one should be fairly quick and easy to handle, but if I still feel overwhelmed, they'll find me some help. I work with nice guys.

At any rate, the weird panic and overreacting plus the more-extreme-than-usual scatterbrained-ness plus the dwindling supply of blue pills in my birth control compact all add up to PMS. Happy happy joy joy.