Burlap Soul

I've learned that I'm really impatient when I'm sick. I hate having to sit in bed (unable to breathe and coughing my brains out) for days on end, left with nothing but time to sit and think about eveything that needs to be done and unable to do anything about it. Ugh. It just sucks because it's happened while J. and I were trying desperately to do something fun for our 4-year anniversary and also right when J. has a 4-day weekend. I'd been looking forward to this weekend for months. I wanted to participate in the New Year's Day-in-the-Life Project really bad. We wanted to go ice skating. We wanted to organize and clean up the house a little and get some errands done. We wanted to get up on New Year's Day and open presents and have our own little Christmas together with just us and the animals. Instead, we haven't been able to do anything because we both feel so shitty that even walking around the house seems like too much of a task. We never even got a chance to go out and get presents for each other, much less do anything remotely fun. We spent New Year's Eve at the Urgent Care Clinic, coughing and sniffling in tandem. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I feel horribly ripped off and it just leaves me really unsatisfied... *sigh*

Anyway, I did finally go to the doctor. It wasn't an ear infection like I had originally thought. Turns out I have an upper respiratory infection with lymphadenitis, which basically means that my right lymph node is infected and is making it feel as though my ear and throat are exploding from the inside out and I am trapped inside a giant Dizzy Machine. Fun Fun!

Luckily though, the doctor gave me a huge amount of free samples instead of writing 4 different prescriptions, so woohoo! I have discovered that Zyrtec sucks though and I don't understand the wide-spread use of this stuff. How is it that a decongestant actually makes me more congested? Wtf? Today, after waking up at 10am, I went back to bed at noon and slept until 6pm without even feeling as though I had rested. Weird. My body must be completely knocked out by this damn thing.

Some positive things though so I don't drag myself down too much:

-- free samples
-- antibiotics that make my ear pain subside with each passing day
-- painkillers for said ear pain
-- J. for shutting the door and keeping the animals out of the bedroom so I could sleep without interruptions all day
-- Jess for taking pictures of my wedding present to her back in June and being so thankful for my little gift :-)
-- finally having the strength to stand up and take my first shower in over five days (you have no idea how nasty I was feeling, yuck!)
-- feeling clean
-- J. bringing me soup and sandwiches in bed
-- J. washing all the bed sheets/covers and my pajamas in order to get rid of some of those nasty germs
-- Updated blogs that keep me entertained and give me reading material
-- Gypsy who keeps licking me and my 'wounds' and tries to clean away my sickness the only way she knows how
-- Watching the documentary on the making of ChickenRun with J. (one of my favorite movies!) and feeling an urge to watch all of my old Wallace and Gromit tapes again
-- Reruns of ER so that I can finally watch Without A Trace without any huge moral dilemma ;-) (damn battling time slots! why must I choose?!)
-- Kisses with J. at midnight while watching the ball drop in Times Square and wishing we were there with them

Ahhh, I'm so dizzy. That's enough for now. The scrolling of web pages and the movement of the cursor as I type is enough to make me feel as though I'm spinning. Bleh.. Off to bed for me. Hope everyone is starting off the year on a happy (and healthy!) note. :-)

Big Congrats to Christine and Mike who became engaged on New Year's Eve! Best wishes to you both! :-D

Hang in there... I'm redesigning. I don't think I'm going to keep the orange. I may wait and save it for summer.. but it is cool, no? ;-)

Updated: Okay, well.. I guess I'm finished. I'm not sure I'm completely happy with it, but it will have to do for now. Can you read the white letters? It seems hard on my eyes, but I'm so sick and dizzy right now that I don't think I'm seeing anything correctly. Uuugghhh... must go back to bed. In the meantime, while I'm sacked out and doped up, let me know what you think. I'll try to fix anything that's broken when I wake up.. in about a week. Blech.

Okay..

If you send a package priority mail from Cincinnati to Baltimore on Christmas Eve, is it logical for it to take more than ten days to arrive? Considering the holiday rush? .... Please?

And what if your sweet-but-absent-minded sweetie forgot to get delivery confirmation and you've both dug through three bags of trash only to realize that you've lost the receipt and it cannot be found? Then what? Does the post office keep records of packages without you needing the necessary paperwork?

Grrr... Mercury, I hate you. Looks like I'll be calling the post office tomorrow. I'm so so sorry, Jess. Maybe it will still arrive? Like tomorrow? ... Please? :-[

On Saturday, we were feeling better. I was still congested and you were still blowing your nose a lot, but we were actually feeling better. We had been sick for four days and even still, we had enjoyed being home together all day. We slept together all day and coughed together and had nose-blowing contests when it was really bad. You put chapstick on my nose when it was raw and bleeding. You surprised me with three huge boxes of tissues so we wouldn't have to use toilet paper anymore and it was like a godsend. But on Saturday, we were feeling better.

I want this dog soooo bad. That face! That ear! I can't resist him anymore! Can I have him? Pleeeeeease?

Yeah, I've been quiet lately. Truth is, there hasn't been much to say. J. and I have been spending some really nice moments together lately and I'm almost afraid to write them down for fear of spoiling them in my mind. (I wrote some of them here, but it's such a personal entry that I'm not sure if I should've published it or not... but I've always lived my life honestly, no matter what the cost. So there it is.) I've been resting and trying to recuperate from this plague of phlegm and massive pain little infection I've been through, and for the most part I have been successful. I finished the last of my antibiotics yesterday and I'm up and moving around successfully.. which means I'm living a daily life without hacking my brains out every five minutes. Yesterday J. and I met after his work and I drove for the first time in over a week, without dizziness. Score!

School starts Monday and I'm still trying to get into a regular sleeping routine, except I seem to be having difficulty with the not-sleeping-until-1pm part of it. Hopefully that will change soon though. If not, school is going to kick my ass. Luckily, the big ass-kicker, Research Methods is an evening class for me this year. Though I am scared shitless of this class (because it takes all the statistics you "learned" and forces you to apply it to hard data and make 20-page lab reports and presentations constantly), a large part of me is determined to just go with the flow and take it as it comes. I've learned that when I jump right in and decide that I am going to 'attack' a class and devour it whole, I usually end up more than crushed if I don't understand the material or don't do well in it. So I'm not going to be so damn hard on myself about it this time because it doesn't fix anything.

There's also the possibility of big news on our front. I almost don't want to curse the opportunity by explaining what it is... but I'll try and give you a painfully obvious but not so much that it disrupts my superstitious facade vague clue. It involves the all-but-given-up possibility we have of being approved for a rather large loan... you know, one that is too large to buy a car with... one that could buy us a rather large uh.. breadbox, yeah, that's it... though what we would buy with this loan would be much larger than a breadbox... though you could put a breadbox in it.... and still have room for the car along side the breadbox. Are you getting it? Shhhh! Don't say it out loud! You'll curse us for all eternity! Just nod, keep your lips sealed and smile along with me... :-) (Remember, the Powers That Be are listening and I believe that they are angry with me my friends. Very angry.) We find out our chances of attaining this 'bigger than a breadbox' loan today.
Please, if you've ever sent me a vibe for anything in your life, I'd be ever so thankful is you could send us some of those primo awesome really good ones now. We've wanted this so bad, for so long, I can't even describe how much we want it. Well, okay.. we want it so bad it hurts. Good enough? ;-)

Alright. I need some new reads, people. Throw 'em at me! Tell me some of your favorite blogs (that aren't on my blogroll) and then tell me why you like them!

In other news.. they've finally shut our phone off. We'll probably have it back on by Monday, but still, it's a damn pain. Stupid loan check. Where in the hell is it already? We need to pay our bills. Oh well, I actually don't mind. That's one way to get rid of those pesky creditors and telemarketers! Woohoo! ;-P

Loan check has arrived. Sweetie is finally home. Friday is finally here. Dog is tired and freshly-emptied. Both of us are freshly bathed and dressed for our first night out in nearly two months.

We are off to have a yummy Mexican dinner at one of my favorite restaurants (huge vegetarian chimichangas smothered with cheese, baby!) and then we are off to see Big Fish. Hope your Friday and your weekend go swimmingly. ;-)

If you've ever been criticized for being a dreamer, if you've ever told stories as a means of survival, if you've ever wondered about the enigma that surrounds the storytellers of this world, if you've ever been a storyteller yourself, if you've ever missed the days when you're imagination was as wild as it was when you were five years old, if you've ever spent hours, days, weeks, years lost in the fantasies of your own mind and found it a splendid journey...

Please, go see Big Fish. If you can get through that ending without a stirring in your spirit or a tear in your eye, you have no soul. Period.

First day of classes is over and completed. Realized that the walk from the car to my class is going to royally suck if I don't get a better winter coat soon. Realized that I've forgotten practically everything I learned in Italian 101 last semester and couldn't stop giggling when I realized I couldn't even tell someone what my name was in Italian. Realized, though not for the first time, that my brain will not work before 11am. Realized while sitting in my geography class that I was easily the only person in there over the age of nineteen. Realized that, although now I have the ambition to complete college and the focus to make better grades, I no longer have the energy I did when I started nearly eight years ago, and that it's a damn shame really. Realized that you rarely have both ambition and energy at the same time and then wondered why the universe would curse us like that. Realized that the price of textbooks is only going to get worse and that by the time my kids are in college, I will be paying over five-grand for three books. Realized that geography might be fun after all, but only because I get to label and color maps.. with crayons. Realized that all professors have their own agendas and that just because you signed up for geography to learn about all the world and its cultures, it really means that you'll be studying Asia for nearly 3 months because as the professor puts it, she "really likes Asia." Realized that I am closer to the professor's age than my classmates. Realized that I've never felt so old and still so smart all at the same time. Weird.

Man, I seriously need to graduate and get the hell out of there. At this rate, I'll be walking up for my degree while using a cane and wearing tri-focals. Yes, I'm being overtly dramatic. I realize that I'll get over it by midday.

Okay, so Gypsy's been leaking a lot lately from her anal sacs. (Hey, is that an opener or what?) This is normal (because they often become too full in domesticated dogs) and I've no problem with emptying them myself. Remember, I was training to be a veterinarian for nearly the first half of my life and I've done this on almost all of my dogs since I was twelve years old. However, I seem to have lost this great old book I always referred to while doing it and I haven't had a dog in over eight years. So you could say I'm a little rusty and I also didn't want to try it on Gyppers without a little refresher, for fear of hurting her or making it worse.

Imagine my surprise when I am doing a google search for information and come across this. Yes, it's an animation. Oh, but wait.. it's not just any animation. Did you scroll down the page? ... go ahead, I'll wait.... Uh-huh. How do you like that nice interactive and virtual Internal Finger Probe?

Never in my life have I wanted to gag and laugh my ass off at the same time. (Note to self: do not view this while eating lunch.) If the internet had been so easily available when I was a kid, my poor pets would have undergone labotomies for the sole reason that it "looked cool and I wanted to try it." Thank God for small favors. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an undying urge to wash my hands even though I haven't done anything yet. And I'm almost positive that after I do get this anal-cleansing project completed, I won't be worrying about my nail-biting problem for the rest of eternity. Again.. small favors, but you know... still just... ew.

Um, testing something...

Go ahead, click it. You know you wanna.

Have I ever mentioned just how much I love this site? So informative and really awesome for people that know nothing of the breed.
Man, I could sit and browse those beagle babies all day... It's like heaven for me really. Yeah, I think Gypsy needs a friend... or perhaps an entire pack of them if I had my way. ;-)

I mean, honestly... Can you say no to this face -- without laughing?
Yeah, me neither.

So J. decided to surprise me with a night out tonight... kind of a belated anniversary celebration since we were both bed-ridden with the plague on New Year's Eve. I got to dawn my amazing Italian leather knee-high black boots that I bought last July and I got to see J. looking mighty fine in his purple dress shirt and snazzy silver tie. Rowrr....
We finally got to experience the majesty that is P.F. Chang's China Bistro. It was the first time I'd ever had a waiter come and unfold my napkin and put it in my lap himself. Hee hee.. I almost giggled. I felt like such a country-girl, all dressed up and hanging out in a trendy Manhattan restaurant and feeling so out of place. It certainly didn't feel as though we were still in Cincinnati and surrounded by Ohioans wearing sweats and picking up their takeout. I think our waiter was possibly the best one there though, as he kept snapping his fingers and had everyone waiting on his every command. I know he was just being professional, but I just couldn't help but giggle on a few occasions at some of his antics.

I love stories like this.
I know that the people that run these rings are virtually impossible to find, so when they find this many people and arrest them all, I am ready to jump with joy. It's sad because the animals that were found alive most likely will never be able to be adopted because of their temperaments, but still... that's 13 dogs that will not have to die a gruesome, violent death for someone else's entertainment. And I love the fact that the huge cashpot of money they found will now go to none of them. I feel like Nelson when these assholes get busted. Ha-Haaa! *pbbt!*

So many things swimming around in my head. So many to-do lists that need crossed off or at least tackled. So many random thoughts floating here, there, everywhere. So many random pieces of notepaper covered with my endless scribbles. So many things to do, yet no time to figure out when to do them.
You ever get that feeling that your head needs emptied just so that you can finally take some deep breaths and get some clarity and maybe some rest?

*sigh* I've really got to sit down and type some stuff out soon... or my brain's going to explode.

I've been through a lot of acting classes in my lifetime. I've been told to bring up some pretty strong emotions from my past in order to fully grasp and portray a character. Ironically, none of it ever really bothered me. I always understood that it was part of the process and that it was really just a means to an end. A chance to give my emotions a healthy outlet.

Tonight, a simple fifth-grade level geography assignment caused such a stream of horrid flashbacks that I was edging towards a meltdown. I had to draw a map of my hometown and the area around my home as I perceived it when I was twelve. I never imagined that drawing a simple map would be so unbelievably hard. I never imagined that a simple sketch of a house where I lived or a road where I rode my bike or a forest where I played could trigger such a massive flood of pain and emotional bloodshed. Since we can opt out of four assignments over the course of the semester, I decided that it wasn't worth the price of my sanity and didn't do it. Then I just let the emotions and tears come and I didn't feel guilty about my decision at all. As a matter of fact, I think it's a very grown-up decision and I'm proud that I made it.

I'm really tired. I'm cried out. J.'s cried out along with me. I purged yet another horrid memory that I'd kept held just under the surface for so long, but it was ready to come and I was ready to let it free. And I did just that. Took my time, let the words come out on their own, let the images flood me, let the story tell itself.. all while holding J.'s hand. As cliche as it sounds, sometimes it does feel good to just tell someone. And if that someone is a man that loves you very much and cries along with you and holds you tight when you are sobbing so hard that it feels as though your gut is being pulled out.. all the better. If he is a man that looks you in the eye and tells you that he'd go back in time and give you one of his parents so that someone would tell you that you were loved.. well, that's just the icing on the cake, isn't it? There are days when I trigger the memories myself, just because the masochist in me refuses to let it go. Then there are days when the memories come from nowhere and totally knock the wind out of me. Either way, if I can still call it a good day afterwards, then they have not won. Nor have I lost.

Today I received new books (to me) in the mail as a free gift from a fellow blogger that I admire. I received a cd that I've been pining over for months in the mail from Amazon as a surprise gift from J. just because he loves me and wants to see me enjoy getting lost in the music. I listened to that cd in my car all day and then played it again and again once I got home and slow-danced with him to it in the livingroom while he cooked me dinner. I fell in love with music and life and love all over again. I made it through another 3-hour Research Methods lecture and actually found the material interesting. I came home and cried and cried when the old ghosts came running at me with gigantic baseball bats... but then I was held tightly afterwards and told some of the most beautiful things by a man that loves me unconditionally and then the memories weren't so powerful anymore.

So yes, today was a good day... and I have certainly not failed. In fact, I'd say I've surpassed my own expectations.

Small survey, courtesy of Laura. We're both very good at avoiding homework. ;-)

1. When I sing, I sound like a mixture between Karin Berquist, Shannon McNally and on a good day, Tori. (Though really, I'm just flattering myself with all three of these.)
2. July is my favorite month of the year.
3. I've always wanted to improve my temperament.
4. It's Monday morning, and the first thing that goes through my mind is "Ahhh, crap. Get this over with already so I can go back to bed."
5. My favorite day of the week is Saturday because I can sleep late, do whatever the hell I want, stay up until 4am and then sleep late again.
6. I used to/currently collect Garfield memorabilia, black cats (for Halloween display) and snowmen (for Christmas/winter display).
7. At the end of a work day/school day, the first thing I want to do is put on my comfy sweats and snuggle with the animals (and J. too if he's home).
8. I really look forward to Halloween because it's my favorite holiday.
9. When I need some down-time, I usually cruise blogs, watch tv or read.. though music is always a factor in there somewhere.
10. I plan to travel to Italy, Ireland and London someday.

Why is it that I sleep better during daylight than at night in the dark? What am I, a cat? I could be like Guinness and run around here like an insane banshee, loaded with manic energy, wailing and ripping the blinds apart right at sunrise everyday. Then I'd just go back to sleep for the next 15 hours and start all over again at 2am. Have you ever seen an animal not get enough sleep? Do you ever imagine your cat or dog just coming to you in the middle of the night and saying, "I can't sleep. I guess I'm just too worried about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow." Nope. Doesn't happen, does it? Hell, even in the wild, when animals are being stalked by prey constantly in the night, they still get plenty of sleep and don't seem to worry about it. Why must I be human? Sleep all day, eat whatever you want, whenever you want, poop wherever you want, whenever you want, go back to sleep afterwards. I feel like I got short-changed somehow.
Insomnia sucks. I'm off to try again.

Okay.. how in the hell does someone leave spam in the comments of my password-protected photoblog? Any ideas on this?

I love it when J.'s on a roll. :-)

Fucking spammers. Why do these cowards insist on commenting on months-old entries? It really ticks me off that they are now acting like regular commenters and leaving vague bullshit statements with fake links, especially when it's done to entries like this. I do believe I'll be paying a visit to the MT forums later to finally get the anti-spam plugin installed. I only hope that I don't break the internet while trying to figure it out. *sigh*
When did people get so stupid?

Originally written during a mild anxiety attack nearly four days ago. I'm doing better now and reading this kind of makes me laugh at myself and the melodrama in my brain, but I want to document this just so I can actually look back and answer some of the questions later in my life and not forget. Really, this is here just for me. It's up to you if you want to read it.

House House House House House
What if? when? what do we do if we get it? how do we afford to fix it up? will we have the money to heat it up? will we have the money to buy a kerosene heater to get through the rest of winter? would his family borrow some extra money and give it to us to cover some repair costs? what about paying for a home inspection? what needs to be done in this house before we could go to a new one? who will pay the closing costs? how do we live in a house that's just been purged of its furniture? how do we get rid of our own without owning a truck? would someone lend us a truck? what if we don't get it at all? what if it turns out to be in a flood zone? what if the seller doesn't come down on price at all? what if the pipes are all screwy and our water pressure sucks? what if the pipes have already burst? what if the whole damn thing just breaks into pieces and floats away down the river the very day that we sign the papers? what if jeff doesn't get a raise? what if he finally gets some leverage and goes to his bosses and tells them what he wants and they say, 'so long, see ya, take the other job then ya egotistical dickweed'? what if that other job is in the complete opposite direction of that house and all of our efforts to move into kentucky saved us nothing?

You ever have one of those days where you're listening to the radio and a new song comes on that makes you want to absolutely cringe because it's so horrible? And then to your total horror, it becomes a huge hit and they play it constantly and it drives you bonkers and you start to assume that it's only a hit because 13-year-olds are just juvenile enough to love it and request it 234, 957, 137 times on TRL and that must be why it's getting such huge goddamned radio play and then you start to realize that it's just a brief one-hit-wonder and that it will eventually fade away like all of the others? And then shortly afterward, you are shopping with your mom or your best friend or someone who's musical tastes you really admire and then that person suddenly turns to you and says, "Hey you know that really annoying brain-twisting piece of crap song that you hate but the one that is wildly popular?" And you laugh and say, "Yeah..." totally preparing for your friend/mom/mentor to give that nasty-ass song the burn of the century so that you will feel redeemed in your hatred of it, but then this person you admire dearly suddenly interrupts you excitedly and says, "Oh my god! I love that song! Isn't it awesome?!! I totally thought of you when I heard it!" And then you stare at them in a bewildered stupor with a totally deflated feeling in your body and wonder if you've suddenly stepped into the first stages of the apocalypse or possibly a Twilight Zone episode where everything you thought was real really wasn't and if anyone around you has ever really known you in the first place?

Yeah, that feeling. Well, that's kind of how I felt today when I saw that "Stacy's Mom" has been nominated for a Grammy.
Hide under your beds, children. The end of the world is near.

So how do you know when you've crossed that threshold and you are finally a woman? I know the milestones that everyone thinks it is - menstruation, losing your virginity, getting married, childbirth - but what is it really? What allows you to stop defining yourself as a little girl and start really feeling as though you are finally a complete woman? What has to happen in order for this transformation to take place? And how do you reconcile that little girl within, make her feel as though she is not forgotten and that it is okay to become a grown-up? How do you tell your inner awkward teenager that sex is okay and that your body isn't something to be hidden or shameful about? And then how do you shut out those annoying voices of all the scared little girls within you when you are lying naked with a man that loves you and he says that you are beautiful and you feel like running from the room because only 'bad' girls allow themselves to be seen naked?

I am having a hard time with this, obviously. I am just tired of feeling like a scared little girl all the time, constantly defending my decisions to those that continue to treat me like I am a naive child, even when I know that I am not, but still feel as though I must prove myself to all of them. I keep looking to others to tell me that I am grown, because I am unsure of it within myself. I keep looking for that one single moment when everything will just 'click' and I will know that I am a woman. When that moment never happens, it is then that I wonder if I am somehow different from everyone else or if my expectations were just off.

When you're robbed of a decent childhood and you never really get to focus on growing up and becoming comfortable within yourself and your new body and your new mature life with all of its responsibilities and new discoveries, how do you become a woman without forgetting the girl? Is there a balancing act that must take place or is it more natural than that? When did you know? What happened in order for you to feel as though you were finally a woman? Was it a single moment or a series of moments that you realized only after their completion in your life? Hell, do you even know now?
Secrets, people, what are the secrets?.. Seriously, what gives? I want to know. Do tell... please.

Jon Stewart, on why President Bush has only held eleven press conferences in his three years of office:

"You can only write out so many things phonetically."

I cannot stop laughing. God bless The Daily Show.

J. cracks me up as well. Afterward, when I am watching to see if he thought that was funny (because I know he's somewhat of a Dubya supporter and I'm always wondering if he's annoyed by these jokes), I am surprised to see him laughing his ass off and I give him a questioning look. Then he just looks back at me and says something that makes me laugh even harder:

"I may be a republican, but I still know an idiot when I see one."

You ever have one of those 3 or 4 day stretches where life just takes you on a gigantic roller coaster with great highs and horrible lows and then spits you out at the end without really feeling any better or having any sort of resolution and all you are left with is a nauseous stomach, a dizzy sensation and a massive headache?

Yep, having one of those stretches now, thanks. Stop this ride please, Sir. I want off.

I loved taking this quiz. It was long and required my email address and such, but I loved the fact that there wasn't a boring city on my entire list. New Orleans, Sacramento and Las Vegas were in my top five! Yeah, baby!
(Hint: Weather plays a big factor in the decision making process, so choose those answers carefully.)

Go do it! It's actually pretty cool!

And on that note, we're off to watch tv and stay warm inside while eating freshly-delivered calzones and cheesy bread... mmmmmm, cheeeeeeeese. ::drool, drool, slurp::

Hope you're having a wonderful Friday. :-)