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 |  "Clean cup! Move down!" ~~the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland, Walt Disney cartoon |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Sometimes in life, you have to pick up and move down the table. A regroup, a fresh start. A clean slate. |
Response: "Invalid Entry"  Alternate title: Why is this a thing? I'm on Tumblr. I tumble. And there are certain things that are guaranteed to empty the crazy closet on your ass topic-wise: 1) Cultural appropriation--Holy shit. This brings them out in droves. Frothing at the mouth droves. Do I think cultural appropriation is ok? No, no I do not. Do I think people like Miley Cyrus need to get death threats for twerking and some questionable tattoo choices? No, no I do not. Chill the fuck out, people. She isn't actively enslaving anyone and her art (as weird as it is at times) brings attention to what ever culture she is "appropriating." If you don't like what she is doing.....vote with your wallet. It is the most powerful ability we as Americans have, voting with our wallets. But sending her death threats? Really? That is your response as an adult? "I feel like your style of dancing disrespects me and my culture. For that you must die."  How about instead a nicely worded, "Your music is nice, but wearing a bindi when you aren't Hindi is disrespectful, please don't do it. M'k? Thanks."2) Fat shaming--Mother of pearl. This one is a hot button topic, as Katrina Kamradt  discussed. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing. You can't say anything about anyone else. And I agree with that. You shouldn't be saying anything else about anyone else on the topic of their weight or body size unless it is to say, "Hubba hubba! You are hot as hell!" And then only in a respectful way and if it is welcomed. Say anything about your own weight and you can get descended upon by these jackals, too, though. In an almost creepy, "You must be happy with your current body, why are you not happy with it?" kind of way.3) Disney and their animated movie choices--Crap on a cracker. The schism is fairly deep on this particular topic. Some of you may be asking, "What the hell? Disney? What are you talking about? What is this about?" Frozen. Frozen is what this is about. Specifically the fact that Frozen, a movie about two white princesses, followed Tangled, a movie about a white princess. Why does Disney not make more movies about people of color? I am not a person of color so I don't really have an opinion about this. But, I can see where people of color have a point. The problem women, especially, are having is that Frozen is finally a princess movie that isn't a really a love story. ~spoilers~ It is about two sisters who love each other. And their love is what saves the day. One prince in the movie is a bad guy and the other turns out to be kind of tangential to the story line. It is kind of a feminist story. And really good. So if you haven't seen it....do! 4) Feminism--Heh. Heh, heh. This one kind of cracks me up on Tumblr. At even a hint of anti-feminism, it is like a shark feeding frenzy. Or those sea gulls in Nemo. Even if it is a joke. Or a non-thing. They descend en masse. And rip people a new one. 'Til the offender slinks away in shame. I've seen anti-feminists delete their blog after a particularly viscous frenzy. Men, women, gays, lesbians, transgendered. Everyone attacks. Quickly. And harshly. I was called a "feminazi" last week on Facebook. That kind of shit would not be tolerated on Tumblr. Total strangers would have flocked to my defense over that kind of ugliness. |
| Response: "Invalid Entry" One of my favorite parts of being a writer is climbing in other people's heads. Climbing in my characters' heads. I love to imagine their lives, I love to imagine their worlds. I love to imagine their inner thoughts and wants and desires. That is the best. Imagining their lives. I love being the god of their worlds. I am a huge reader. Huge. Reader. I feel like I have the ability to put myself into a multitude of women's situations and men's situations. I feel like I have the ability and imagination to delve into the thoughts, worlds and inner workings of anyone; man, woman or child. And if I feel I'm lacking? Research. Interviews. Figure that shit out. Use that imagination. Watch movies, watch TV series, read, read, read, read, read, read. Oh and if that fails? Read. I'm a writer it is my job, nay, my obligation to get it right. To make the writer feel not only what I want them to feel, but what the character would be feeling and have those feelings be honest, genuine and realistic. At least that is the stuff I tell myself when I am writing. 'Cause writing other people is hard. Writing other people without big chunks of my personality bleeding through like Sharpie through cheap paperstock is super hard. I start feeling like I am having a schizophrenic meltdown. My personality splits off into all my characters. It is healing, though. A kind of therapy in book form. To the point where I feel open and naked and with my soul horribly, horribly, brutally exposed. But, they say that is fine. Other writers say that is normal. I struggle with that. But, struggle is good and growth is good. And even if no one ever reads my books, at least I got it all out of my head. |
| Response: "Earthlings call it fate!" . I'm sitting here crying so hard right now. I spent this morning putting in resumes and job applications online. Like I do every morning. Like I have for over a month. When I was done, I opened up my resume just to look it over because I started thinking that maybe I need to tweek it, maybe I need to reword it somehow. MAYBE WHAT THE FUCK I NEED TO DO IS PUT MY CORRECT FUCKING PHONE NUMBER ON THE MOTHERFUCKER. I'm so upset. I don't even know how many of these damn things I've sent out with the last digit of my phone number as a 9 not a 7. I can't even right now. Probably 50? 75? I just keep sending them over and over and over. Oh my god the incompetence. Fate? Is that fate? I don't know. I just can't. I don't know right now. |
| Response to "Bloody brilliant" . Today was a difficult day. Today was fraught with life fails and "I don't want to play anymore"'s. I am having this kind of day. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Stupid things little things. Big things. I had to call the mortgage company and explain why we are going to be late with our payment. I hate our mortgage company. I hate them with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. The left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing. One of them will tell you one thing and then you think everything is fine and then a month later they are all, "What? Oh, no that wasn't right." Every time I talk to them it comes down to me in tears of total frustration. I changed the sheets and made the bed this afternoon. Got it completely done pillows, whole nine yards. Looked over......there sits the top sheet on top of my dresser. WTF? So...off come the pillows, off comes the comforter, off come the blankets. Sure enough, no top sheet. Hunh. ~sigh~ Fail.I had and have so many, many things to do. So many things to get done. I am looking for a job because, well.....did you notice the part where we have no money and are behind on our mortgage? ~sigh~ I hate looking for a job. I hate my husband just a little when I am looking for a job. Every day...."Did you put in applications today? Where? Well, did you call them back? Have you made ANY calls?" I dread him coming home. I don't want to dread seeing my spouse every day. I fucking get we need money. I get it. I GET IT. I get I need a job. Having you play 20 fucking questions to me doesn't help. It just doesn't. What I wanted to do with my day, instead of all of  that crap was sit and watch Sherlock or Dr. Who or Torchwood. We live near an airport and sometimes we are in the flight path as they come in for a landing. Sometimes as they fly over it sounds a little like the TARDIS and for a moment, just a moment, I think, "Yes! The Doctor is here! He's going to fix things!" And then reality reasserts itself with a big smack and I feel like that again. I want Sherlock to knock on my door and be condescending to me with his piercing eyes and cheekbones as sharp as his wit and Watson to be vaguely apologetic and slightly bumbling. I want Gwyn and Rhys and Captain Jack Harkness to kick in my door and shoot some fish headed something in my basement and then follow them back and have them offer me a job. That would solve my job situation quite nicely. Not sure what the British government pays for alien monitoring, but it has to be decent, right? It keeps Jack in studly, studly coats.~sigh~ I'm afraid none of that will happen, though. What will happen is that I keep putting in my resume and what not until I finally break down and take the job with my husband's company's biggest competitor. They offered me decent money in any position I want. They just want me so they can pick my brain. I've worked for their biggest competitors in all three divisions. And it burns like acid that I will wind up selling my soul that way. |
Regular readers....I'm participating in "Invalid Item" . Follow along or come back after Jan 21st.  Response to "Invalid Entry" :It's why I'm going to start the dreaded process of job hunting and interviewing once again. I'm grateful I have a job. I'm grateful I like the people I work with. But I can do better. And I will. I'm in the process of job hunting again myself. Again. Sometimes I feel like I have spent a significant portion of my adult life looking for my next job. Again and again and again. I mean I know intellectually that I had the job at the hardware store for 3 years and I know that I had my data entry job for three years. But, maybe that's why looking for a new job is such a pain in the butt. I think it is the tedium of the filling out of the forms that drives me nuts. Or that I've had so many jobs and filled out so many forms that at a certain point you feel like you should get a pass and not have to fill any more out. The universe should just at some point say, excellent, you've filled out enough forms and applications. Here is the ideal job for life or until you tire of it or your situation changes and then you get a new job automatically again. That is what I choose. That is what I want. But, I suppose until that happens, I'll keep filling out forms and applications. Sending out resumes. Making phone calls. Getting no calls back. Hoping for the best. Staying positive. |
| As I was doing my 750 words today, I had a crazy stream of consciousness thought. I thought.....we do the blogging Follow the Leader writing challenges, and I'm doing the 750 words challenge to write out 3 pages of random, and twice a year people do NaNoWriMo, but what if...what if we combined some of the features of all of that shit? Stay with me. NaNo does the 50,000 words, right? Or 1667 words a day. 750 words does 750 words a day or 3 pages a day. FtL does an entry a day with a prompt and prizes, etc. What I struggle with is working on my novel in real time. Fitting it in during real life not cramming it in during one of my busiest months of the year. I need a more realistic schedule and I need incentives and help and cheering and other participants to play with me. Blogging is good. Blogging is fun. But blogging is NOT my novel. You see? Here's what I'm thinking: We start a group you join. You post your daily writing goals at the beginning of the week: finish 3 short stories; do 4 pages a day on your novel; do a flash fic piece a day; do a WdC contest a day; etc, whatever. By midnight WdC time, you need to post a link to that work (outside links acceptable). You can make it group viewable only or whatever, but you need to make it viewable so you are accountable that you are really writing. Any goal is acceptable. You only have time to do a flash piece a day? Np. Get on it. But you do that shit daily. Or you start back at the beginning. Meeting your goal builds a chain of days. The more days, the longer the chain. The longer the chain, the better the prize. Prizes to be awarded at various intervals along chains. What do ya'll think? |
| So one of the things I'm covering in therapy is working on knowing what I want for myself vs what I should do. I'm really tired of a life structured around "should." So I'm working on doing what I WANT and what I need. I want to feel better but instead of feeling like I should kill myself exercising and hating every minute of it, I've decided to WANT to exercise. Well, I enjoy walking. I did some research and the same folks who do the Zombies, Run! phone app do an app for walking as well called The Walk . It is brilliant! You turn it on and then walk as normal checking your phone periodically. As you walk you pass checkpoints on the mission. When you pass a checkpoint, you play the short recordings that tell you a story as you go. It is all very James Bond. The walking time passes by so quickly.I'm slowly making small changes. Writing daily. Walking. Little things that add up. |
| Jenn posted a link to a reddit at the beginning of the month and I can't get it out of my head. I think on it and think on it and just keep circling back to it. Here is her entry about it: "Invalid Entry" . So, all month long, I've been making little tiny changes that further this philosophy. The No Zero Day Philosophy. I'm a huge fan of books on the writing craft. Sometimes, I feel I read more about writing than I actually write.  One of my favorites is Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. Some fellow who is also a fan of that book, especially the Morning Pages that Cameron thinks everyone should do, set up a website called 750words . Cameron is very hands on and feels you should do your Morning Pages longhand in a notebook. This fellow (like me) is not a fan of writing longhand. He thinks it is the writing of the words at all that is beneficial. So he set up the site so that you can go on and jam out your three pages (one page is roughly 250 words) and move on with your day. He has a small reward system set up so you get a feeling of accomplishment and the pages are totally private so you can just ramble away in a stream of consciousness type way. No one but you can read them. So, where am I going with this? I need to do these again. I used to do Morning Pages. When I was doing them, I was priming my writing pump and churning out pages of usable writing. Since I stopped, I've all but stopped writing at all. I also want to use these in my quest for No Zero Days. That is all. |
| Done. I kept telling myself I was going to take care of my portfolio for a while, but today I did it. I just sat here and was ruthless. I hacked and trimmed and basically just jettisoned the dead weight. I'm slimmer, less bloated with randomness and ready to do what I need to at the end of the month when my membership is up. For the first time in the eight years I've been on here, I'm only getting an upgraded membership. I just can't justify spending $140 a year to blog once a month, if that. That is paying roughly $20+ each time I blog. That just doesn't make sense financially. "Oh, Teresa," you say, "that just means you should write more!" But I do. I just don't do it here. I do it at home, in private, on my Scrivner software. I'm just so freaking busy. And now that I have to take two classes next semester, plus work full time....I just don't see my schedule opening up to free up a lot of blogging and "fun" writing time. So....come December....I'm downgrading to an upgraded membership. Expect to see even less of me. |
| College campuses are funny on days like Halloween. There are several societal dichotomies being played out writ large for all to see. Sometimes it is amusing to watch; sometimes it is almost painful. The first are the people who dress up joyously. In their hearts they will never be too old to dress up. They are the Big Bang kids of the world. They have spent hours if not weeks planning their costumes. Possibly they have a posse and there is some sort of costume theme going on. Superheroes, Disney movies, literary characters, etc. Halloween is just one of the many opportunities to dress up all year long. The next wish deep in their heart they could be as fearlessly nerdy as the first group. They have probably given just as much thought to their costume, but they don't have a like-minded posse. They go almost overboard in their costumes. There is a sort of defiance in their presentation. Either they belong to a group that doesn't understand or condone this type of devil may care, non-herd mentality or they are true loners busy being too cool the other 364 days of the year. Only on Halloween can they fly their inner freak flag and bust out with the truly epic Bobba Fett costume they spent weeks working on in private. The third scoff at the very idea of dressing up. Only little kids dress up. Halloween isn't for adults. And for better or worse, they are very serious college students now. They might attend a party later. But not dressed up. Dressing up is for losers and children. But deep in their hearts they wish they had the guts to be carefree enough to wear a red cape and swing a plastic Mjollinar because Thor is awesome as hell. The last are the half in. They don't wear full on costumes, but they attempt to get into the spirit of things with minor costumes: kitty cat headbands, witch hats, devil horns, etc. These people are split between those who are too timid to do the full on costume for one of the above reasons and those who have done the full on costume and found that full on costumes are hella work. You have to keep up with your props, you have to worry about smudging your makeup, the full mask is difficult to see in, the whole lobster is hot and hellish to sit in, capes catch on EVERYTHING, and so forth. I have been people watching all day and mentally sorting them into these categories. It is funny how many fit into them. |
| I'm down my rabbit hole again. Accompanied by anxiety attacks. Bad ones. With chest pains and everything.  Today I called my therapist and she got me into a cancelled session she had this afternoon. Halfway through the session, she told me she wanted me to go right to Student Health (her office is about three blocks from there) and have one of the docs see me and put me on an anti-anxiety med. She called over there and made them see me immediately. When I got there there was a waiting room full of sick people, but when I checked in, they just walked me back to a room and I saw a doctor right away. It was kinda weird. Usually I wait an hour or so there. They put me on Gabapentin for now and told me to take them whenever I feel anxious. I've had two tonight already. I'm finally starting to calm down some. I was able to eat dinner and write a paper that is due tomorrow morning. I just have to go in a little early and print it before class. I got a call from my daughter earlier today (sorry I hate this word, but it is the only one that fits), my cunt of a sister asked her to find a new place to live and told my 20 year old daughter "I feel like you are a parenting fail for me."  My daughter refused to engage her and just walked away. She told me, "Momma, I wanted to tell her I didn't live with them because I needed parents, I HAVE parents. You and the Daddy are my parents. You already raised me and you did a great job. I just lived with them to save money so I could pay off some debt and save for a car. (Which they knew when they INVITED her there to live with them.) Her parenting fail is that I am currently parenting her children, not her." I was so proud of my daughter though. She said, "Fuck it" and went out and found a place today. She moves in this weekend. When she told my sister, my sister tried to backpedal and say she hadn't meant it, she was just wanting my daughter to do this, that and the other. Monilad said, "Well, I took it to mean you wanted me to move out. So I'm going." I'm proud of my baby. She kicks ass.I'm calm now. I'm going to bed. I'm hoping tomorrow is better and that the drugs keep me calmer and less stressed. I can't take the chest pains. |
| I'm in the library at MSU. Waiting. I have a "Water and Society" class in an hour. It's one of those classes that I enjoy, but I don't always appreciate attending at 3pm on Friday afternoons. I am coming out of my mid-semester freakout/struggle. At least I hope I am coming out of it. Who knows. Maybe I'm not. I want to believe I am, though. Maybe that is half the battle. Wanting to. I have been missing classes and then freaking out because I've had a couple of midterms and I was worried about what my grades would look like because of the missed classes. One of the classes I finally sucked it up and went to see the prof and got my test back. I got one of the highest grades in the class. Bill (the prof) laughed when I told him I'd been worried about my grade. He told me that he never worries about my grades. He was just worried about my health. I have been having migraines to go along with the stress, so I usually just tell professors that I'm having migraines because of the fall weather patterns. (We've had a lot of storms coming through lately.) They seem ok with it. I took the other midterm today, so I don't know the grade yet. I've been stressed because I can't relate to the professor. She and I......let's say that we have different viewpoints. She is a big believer in demographics tell the majority of the story and I disagree because demographics are like any statistic and can be manipulated and distorted to tell the story with whatever slant you want. Yes, they are important and they can tell an important PIECE of the story, but they aren't the ENTIRE story. She also is one of those people who feels that if someone has published on a subject then they are the last word on that subject. Uh...no. That leaves no room for new thoughts and new ideas. I also disagree with her almost vehemently that stats from the 1990s are in anyway relevant to today when discussing current trends in the economy in the West. You simply CANNOT cherrypick one past decade as an indicator of how markets will trend currently when we are in the midst of a recession, ignoring current information as a blip. No. Just no. You CAN look at info going back over the last century and incorporate these past few recession years as a minor downtick on years of an upswing. That is acceptable, but you can't cherrypick decades and say they tell the whole story. 'Cause that is manipulating the data. You have to look at it all. That is what the scientific method is all about. You don't get to pick and choose what data you use. You use it all. Even if it doesn't support or even refutes your theory. ~sigh~ So anyway....I took that midterm today. I think I did ok. I felt okay about it. But, who knows. Whatever. At this point, I just keep chanting, "C's mean degrees. C's mean degrees." Which is funny because I've taken on a new job. MSU's mascot is the Bobcat. They pride themselves on their cleverness for naming campus clubs, stores and programs. (e.g. The on-campus copy place is called "CopyCats."  ) So I got a job tutoring kids with the MSU sponsored tutors, the (wait for it..................) SmartyCats. The school pays for me to tutor people in classes in which I received A's. I apply for the slot and get the prof who teaches the class to recommend me as a tutor. Remember the awful Soils class I took that I hated? Ironically, I got an A in it and I will be tutoring kids in it up to 6 at a whack for $12 an hour. (I'll wait while you finish laughing at me. ) It's a decent gig and a good deal for undergrads. As an undergrad you just go to the SmartyCats website, find a tutor who offers tutoring in your class at a time you like and then sign up for it electronically. You are allowed up to 2 hours of free tutoring a week in each subject you take, every semester. You can work it out so you get group tutoring or one on one help if you need it.Apparently I'm somewhat of anomaly because two of the subjects I signed up for NO ONE signs up for but they REALLY need tutors for the subjects. I already have two kids who have signed up for repeating slots with me from now til the end of the semester. I see one kid every Monday and Wednesday for GIS and another every Saturday for Soils. In a class of over 300 kids for the Soils, I am one of TWO tutors through SmartyCats. That's it. TWO. They took their first test on Tuesday. They get them back next Tues. Tony (the Soils prof) warned me to be prepared for a run on my services starting next week. I hope so. I could use the money. |
OMG.  So, I converted my nook into a Kindle as well. Because...double the books. Yay, books! I've been told you can do it with either the nook HD or the Kindle Fire. You just upload the other one's app and Bob's your uncle, you magically have both a nook and a Kindle. Why, you ask, would one do such a thing? Because, FREE FUCKING BOOKS, is why. There are places on the interwebs you can go and sign up with your email address and they will send you links with all the free/discounted book offers on any given day for both nook and Kindle. Then you go to them and download UNLIMITED FREE BOOKS. I have found so many up and coming new, fabulous authors this way. It really is great advertising to offer those first books in a series this way because I assure you I often wind up buying later offerings in a series if I enjoy the first one. Where are these magical places, you ask? I'm glad you asked.  Here are just a couple of them: http://home.bookbub.com/home/ http://onehundredfreebooks.com/ And also this blog entry explains seven places to get free nook books: http://freebies.about.com/od/onlinebooks/tp/free-nook-books.htm So, go forth...read freely, or at least on the cheap. This has been a public service entry brought to you by a person who loves reading. |
| Yesterday I informed my husband I wanted to leave him. Happily he knows that is shorthand, bipolar-speak for, "I'm stressed and freaking out and I feel like I'm not dealing well with my life, please help me." After we talked for a little while, he sent me to fold laundry and clean our bathroom. It's not as weird or insensitive as it sounds. When I start to decompensate (fancy medical term for "lose my shit"), I start showing signs. I watch too much TV; I read too much; I stop taking care of the house. So when I reached the bad signpost of telling him I wanted to leave him (that's the one right before I need to be hospitalized, we've discovered), he realized I needed to reestablish some "normal" in my life. Clutter is really, really bad for bipolars. Like really bad. We do best in clean, orderly environments with a moderate amount of routine. When I decompensate, I make it worse by letting clutter build up around me and I stop all my regular routines. But, if Hubby cleans the clutter up, then he is just enabling my decompensation. He's enabling me to be sick. So, he sent me off to sort myself out. To dig myself out of the pit I'd tossed myself in. When I can clean my way out, then I'm in control. I make myself better. So, I did. Or at least I began the process. Hubby came and checked on me several times and hugged me and told me he loved me. And he cheered me on. He is always my biggest cheerleader.  So, after a couple of bad, bad days. I am feeling better. I hate when I fall down the rabbit hole. It sucks. It sucks to dig and claw and scratch my way back out. But, damn does it feel good that I can. All by myself. (With a lot of help from my biggest fan.) Yay, me! |
| One of the joys of being post-menopausal is the hormones. You have to take the hormones every day (in whatever form) and if you screw up the dosage or miss a dose you notice. You notice in so many wonderful ways. I notice because I have hot flashes. But I also notice because often I get migraines. Yay, migraines. My life is ruled by schedules. As a bipolar, I get sketchy and weird if I don't have a schedule to follow. I'm lazy and don't LIKE following schedules, but I NEED them. Long holiday weekends are hard on me. My schedule gets tossed out the window. We do different things. We sleep later; we eat at odd times; we do different activities; we go on movie/TV show/Video game binges and my schedule is a casualty of these activities. Therefore, I either forget to take my hormones or I take them at odd times. Cue the migraine Monday evening through Tuesday. As my daughter likes to say, I'm allergic to life. Two of my big new allergies are ibuprofen and acetaminophen (Tylenol and Advil). So, when I get a migraine (or stump my toe) those options are closed to me. My only OTC option? Aspirin. In case you didn't know, aspirin does diddly for migraines. A few months ago, an urgent care Dr and I discovered on accident that Torridol works WONDERS on my migraines AND that I'm not allergic to it. They will hand it out like candy in house in the shot form because it is non-habit forming and it is not a narcotic, but they DON'T like to prescribe it in pill form. It is really, really hard on the stomach and is actually a known cause of stomach bleeding among other things. (Apparently it will kill you really quickly done wrong. And it is easily done wrong.) But, I begged, so they gave me a non-refillable script for 21 of them. (Insurance will only allow that many at a time.) I made those last from mid-May to Monday night. Then I ran out. Tuesday I have a 9:25am class and I was all, "Screw it." My brain hurt too badly. But I had to go to my afternoon class because I had to give a group presentation on the Matterhorn. (Who assigns group presentations the second week of school?!) Thirty minutes before the presentation, we discovered one of the partners “misunderstood” the sections of the presentation for which he was responsible, so he had duplicated one of my slides. ~sigh~ I rallied and pulled information out of thin air for the slide he DIDN’T do and then was able to present in a semi-coherent manner. (Maybe it wasn't coherent...maybe I rambled. By then I didn't care.) I begged that our group go first so that I could immediately leave and go to Student Health so I could get drugs. Blessed, blessed drugs. I got to Student Health and discovered that the nice quiet, dark, cool room that they usually have available and set aside for people who need to lie down…..well, there were problems. The whole of Student Health is currently under construction so there were power tools being used, loudly. Hammers, hammering. Drills, drilling. Plus….the air conditioning was out. So the nice quiet, dark, cool room was the loud, dark, hot seventh circle of hell. But, lucky me, they popped me in it for hours before they would give me a shot. A nurse kept sticking her head in to check on me and at one point I deliriously wondered if she was there to baste me; it was that hot in there. I just kept lying there on the bed, stewing in my own juices; except for the two times I got up to throw up, because now, not only did my head hurt, I was nauseated from the extreme heat. Finally (after being there for 4 hours) they gave me the shot and then let me leave. I told them I was on to them, though. I think that the air conditioning ISN’T broken. I think that the school is trying to make extra money by renting parts of the college out as a Turkish bath house. The lower floor of the library (where I am now) is almost as hot and humid. I think budget cuts must mean they are trying for alternate revenue streams. |
| I've posted pics of myself before, but for those of you who don't know, I wear glasses. I can't see shit when I don't wear them. In fact, I'm legally blind without them. (That's important later in the story....foreshadowing, you know.) Hubby and I operate on different shifts in life. He's a morning guy and I'm more of a swing shift kind of gal. So in the mornings he is all super secret squirrel ninja and gets dressed in the dark by the light of his cell phone. Most mornings I don't even wake up. (It helps that I sleep like the dead. )In the evening, when I come to bed after he is long asleep, I try to be all super secret squirrel. I usually operate by the light of my nook because Hubby is an extra light sleeper and the LED light on my phone wakes him up. ("Are you gonna turn that damn thing off?!") Luckily it doesn't take a lot of light to get nekkid and come to bed.Many times, I'll take off my glasses, take my nook into the bathroom (which is just off our bedroom on my side of the bed), perform my evening ablutions and then come to bed all in the relative dark sans glasses. Hey, it's not hard and there are no obstructions between the bathroom door and the bed. The other night, I realized my nook screen was all smudgy and probably so were my glasses. So, (blind and in the dark) I went out to the hall closet and rummaged around for a individually packaged lens cleaner. I buy them 200 to a box from Costco. They are cheap as hell and travel well. I leave the open box just sitting on the bottom shelf in the hall closet for easy access. So, I grab one (still blind and in the dark) tear it open and toss the wrapper in the trash by my bed on the way back into the bathroom. I shut the door and then turned on the light so I could see enough to clean both my glasses and my nook screen. As I was cleaning them, I kept thinking something was up with the lens wipe, though. It was super moist. And it was smearing the hell out of both the screen and my glasses. "Hunh," I thought. "Must be a manufacturer mess up. This wipe has got too much juice on it. Oh, well...it will dry soon enough." In the meantime, I used it to clean my gunky bathroom mirror. Yes...this is how much extra "damp" was on the little wipe. I have a giant-full vanity sized mirror and it got the whole thing and was still damp. So now I'm confused as hell. The mirror is smeared nine ways to Sunday, I can't see shit out of my glasses and my nook screen is a hot mess. WTF? I'm over it and I go to bed. The next morning I cleaned my glasses again with a new wipe. As I throw the outer package away, I happened to look into the trash can and realize exactly WTF. The night before, in the dark and blind, I had grabbed a medicinal vaginal wipe and cleaned everything with that. So....the good news was everything was protected from a yeast infection, the bad news...Vagisil makes a crappy mirror cleaner. ~sigh~ It has been that kind of summer. |
| Every year we go to the Sweet Pea Festival. I've yammered on about it in here before. We go see Shakespeare in the Park there. We go Friday evening (opening night) and see the first one and then we go Sunday evening (closing night) and see the second one. (Montana Shakespeare in the Park does two plays every year--a tragedy and a comedy.) We have seen some greats over the years. Every year we go Friday night and then a partial day Sunday to browse the vendor booths at Sweet Pea. It is basically an arts and crafts thing. You bring your wares and hawk them. Only, and we aren't sure why, for the last few years, there has been a sameness to the crafts. We have started making bets on what will be there. Jewelry, lots of jewelry. It runs the gamut from cheap "recycled" crap to super spendy stuff. But lots of it. About 25% of the booths. About 1/3 of the booths are photography or paintings. The majority of the jewelers, photography people and painters we see year after year. They bring the same ole stuff back time and time again. No real new stuff. The rest of the stuff is a mixed bag of glass blowers, recycled crap peddlers, clothing makers, soap makers and super cheap kids stuff. Except the roughly 1/8 or so of the booths that is high end wood working. There is some super spendy furniture if you have the bucks for it. It took us around 30 minutes to walk the booths this year. We have had years past where it took us half a day. Sweet Pea also offers five stages that has rotating ongoing entertainment throughout the day. A family stage, a children's stage, a music only stage and two others. In the past they have brought in some really great entertainment and you had to be super picky and time it carefully about where you wanted to be in order to make it to all the entertainment so you didn't miss anything. This year it was crap. All crap. There was tons of "Miss Becky's Tiny Tot's Dance Studio Dance recital" and some band you have never heard of in your whole life but they've been practicing in Bob's garage. A few years we've gone all three days just to catch the entertainers we wanted to see. This year we think there was some sort of palace coup within the Montana Shakespeare troupe. There is a certain actor that we LOVE that had been with them for over 17 years. His name is Mark. He is really charismatic and was a driving force behind the company. This year he was simply gone. No explanation in the program, nothing. No well wishes on his new endeavors. All but one of the actors were brand new this year which is odd because before they had mostly veterans and a sprinkling of new people each year. The art director of 30 years is also stepping down as of Sept 1st. No real reason. Just leaving. They had a goodbye letter from him in the program where he also offered no real explanation, just well wishes to the company. We also wound up not going Friday afternoon because we found out that the Friday play (the comedy) wasn't a Shakespeare (and Hubby had to work late). For one of the first times in almost fifty years they did a non-Shakespeare play. WTF? Why do that? It is called Shakespeare in the Park. Not George Farquar in the Park. (They are doing The Recruiting Officer.) Today's play was Henry the V. It was ok. Nothing to write home about. This current troupe has no charisma. No pizzazz. I mean, I know it is free. But they are always so.....fabulous. It was almost shocking in its mediocrity. It made me sad. It was one of the most lackluster St. Crispin's speeches I've ever heard. I wouldn't have followed him across the street or into a pub, much less into battle.  |
| I haven't been in a place to talk about it, but I wanted to let you guys know that last week we had to take Bonnie in and put her down. We had her cremated and she is on the shelf in the living room next to Bear. When Chewie (the kitty--not me) died several years ago, Rob buried her in our back yard and put up a nice marker he made for her. But since we are talking about moving soon, he and I have decided that we are going to take her remains and have them cremated, too. We've decided we won't be getting any more pets. It tears me up inside each time. Five times is plenty. We have to do this two more times with Sofie and with Midnight. Hopefully not soon, Sofie is six and Middy is five. The only thing ever wrong with Sofie is that she is literally the dumbest little animal I have ever been around. Sweet but dumb as a post. We call Middy "the Tank," nothing is ever wrong with "the Tank." I love all of them and I don't know what I would have done these last thirteen years without all of them, but I just can't keep going through this. -------- In other news.... I talked to my boss's wife because she knows the K's across the street. Turns out that I was right. The K's have TWO daughters. Hubby and Monilad are full of shit. They were thinking the younger daughter was a cousin or a friend. I WAS being an observant writer. Yay me! |
| Or, the Case of the Mysteriously Disappearing Neighbor Girl. We have lived in our house for almost ten years. We have had the same neighbors for all of those ten years. The same freaking exact neighbors. On all sides. (Ok, the neighbors on our west side only moved in eight years ago...hyperbole.) Still! Background: I live in a bedroom community just outside Bozeman, MT. It is a just blocks and blocks of similar houses laid out in fancy non-linear blocks. We don't have block parties and for the most part we all keep to our damn selves, but our kids sell each other band candy, Boy Scout popcorn and Girl Scout cookies. We say hello over back fences and at the mailboxes. We wave at one another and say hi while out walking the dog or the kids in the strollers. It is a nice family neighborhood. For ten years, TEN years, I have believed that the K's across the street had two daughters. Both younger than Monilad by a few years. This weekend I said something to Hubby about the "older" K girl should be ready to graduate shouldn't she? He looked at me blankly. "Older? What do you mean older? The K's only have one daughter." Uh...What? So I called Monilad and asked her. "Don't the K's have two daughters?" "What are you talking about, Mom? They just have the one and she should be graduating this year." So....for ten years I have been imagining a younger K daughter. That is disturbing. What is more disturbing is that no one has caught me out at it before now. I've talked to Momma K about her "girls" many times. "How are your girls, C?" I would ask her at the mailbox. She would just smile and say, "Fine." How the fuck after ten years of that do you not snap and say, "Look, bitch, I have one freaking kid!"? When the older K girl has sold me wrapping paper, chocolate, cookies, etc, I've asked after her parents and her sister. She said they were fine. She couldn't say, "Uh...I'm an only child."? What the hell?! ~sigh~ I hate when people spend years thinking I'm nuts or laughing at me when one simple declarative sentence would have fixed the misunderstanding. "We only have one child." Boom. Done. |
| Happy 4th! I'm so proud of myself!!! I am ahead of my writing by a little. (I'm at 4993. I'm averaging 1248 wpd when I only have to write 968.) I don't know why, this story is just really flowing well. Today I was struggling some with it, so I got up instead of forcing it and went and did some housework. Still no flow. So I started asking myself, "Why? What is the problem? Why are you struggling with this scene?" And I had one of those "Aha!" lightbulb moments. Although I have the trilogy arc vaguely worked out (sticky notes) and each book arc worked out (again sticky notes), I haven't REALLY sat down and done any kind of outline for this dang book. I'm trying to drive with no freaking map. I know how the book ends and I know roughly (large strokes) what happens, but I needed more and better directions on which way to drive. So, I sat down this evening and sketched out a page worth of "this happens and then this happens and then this happens which leads to this and this and this." Oh. My. Gawd. Like a damn burst or something. The words just flowed. My muse said, "Saddle up, honey, now you know where we are headed. Let's ride." Yeah. ~happy sigh~ This is how writing should be always. After I write my scenes each day I want to just smoke a cigarette. Not because the content is sex related, but because I forgot how orgasmic it is to just sit and create. To let your story flow onto the page. To read it back and think, yes. Just...yes. And to know that you are birthing something awesome. |
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