Monologue Archives Autumn 2003: September and October 2003. Winter 2003 - Summer 2003 - 2002 archives
10/30/03:
* I would like a new head, please. This one hurts. It's these darn sinuses; my face and most of the rest of my head hurts, which means my neck hurts too. I took extra drugs. I'm gonna be soooo out of it today. I'll probably be out of it for Halloween tomorrow, too. Not that I have a costume or anything, of course, but I was going to be social. Maybe not. I just want to curl up and knit or read.
10/28/03:
* Happy anniversary to us! Three years of marriage. I love my husband.
While I've had worse weekends, this one is on up the list of lousy weekends. The grumpiness didn't go away, and got rather worse, because it was PMS. Add crampy ouuches, and I may as well just lock myself up for a few days. Instead, I went to dance class and helped Mike with his mummy. Random bursting into tears occurred, and we went home and didn't leave again until we went out to lunch yesterday. It was a good lunch. And some good shopping afterwards. I made the yarn shop lady's day.
10/24/03:
* You are all saved from my grumpiness by the Center for the Prevention of Shopping Cart Abuse. Be grateful. I had nightmares last night and didn't sleep well. I was all set to be the crankiest woman on Earth, but then I found help at the Center. Well, and it's Friday, and I'm taking Monday off for our wedding anniversary. Three days off in a row do improve my disposition.
10/23/03:
* Not so ranty today. I'm too tired. I'd just gotten to sleep when my husband came back in and asked me to help him find our black cat. The little booger ran outside when my husband wasn't looking, and took off up the street when he was startled. Then the same little booger, with the help of his accomplice the white cat, woke me up again just a few hours later. I kicked 'em out of the bedroom. I woke up one more time, just before five. And I wonder why I have such a hard time getting up in the morning. I've still been hungry in the morning, too. That's soooo weird. But I'm hungry a lot lately.
10/22/03:
* I usually don't get political in this weblog. But I can't just let these things pass without comment, either. Large portions of our government is apparently on mind-altering substances, because they don't live on the same planet, in the same country, that I do.
* The first thing is the impending partial-birth abortion ban. Anyone who knows me, knows that I could never have had an abortion myself - I want a baby too badly. But I don't think the way to prevent abortions is to make it illegal to perform them; all that will do is cause a return to risky back-room procedures that endanger the mother as well as the child, and don't always work, either. I also think that there are certain medical reasons to seek abortion, such as extreme risk to the mother (do you think the baby would survive if the mother becomes very ill or dies? It wouldn't.) or, ironically, to the baby. I know, a ban on partial-birth abortions isn't a ban on abortion in general, but that is what the so-called pro-life movement is driving towards, and our elected and appointed government seem more than happy to go along with them. This is not okay.
* The second is the Legislature and Governer of Florida basically forcing life support on a comatose woman. The parents wanted her on life support, her husband doesn't think she wants to live this way (and he's her legal guardian). Her heart stopped back in 1990, since which time she's been in a vegetative state. The feeding tube was removed last Wednesday after a court refused to intervene. This is why everyone should have a living will. However, since she apparently doesn't, I can think of a few criteria that could be used to determine when life support should be discontinued. Is there any higher brain activity in this woman (or in Florida, period)? Does she, in fact, respond to any stimulus, as determined by a medical practicioner (and not, for instance, emotionally invested people like parents)? Thirteen years is a long time to be a vegetable, and if she were going to improve, there would have been some sign of it by now. Maybe there has been, but qualified medical personnel should be making this determination, and deciding with the family what to do. Do we really want government officials such as legislators to decide whether people live or die? I don't. My husband knows what I want if I become a veggie, and so do my parents, but I think that I'll go fill out a living will now...
10/21/03:
* It's a better day, but I'm still all tired and possibly sick. Dilbert.com is having a mystery artist week. Today features one of my favorites, Darby Conley of "Get Fuzzy". I love Get Fuzzy. I have a Siamese cat, you know. She's not quite Bucky, but she definitely has an attitude. I also ran across this very cool site on Citrus Moon, Fractal Recursions, that has a large quantity of fractal artwork - gorgeous!
10/20/03:
* So what did I do after my horrible week? Spend most of Saturday running around and doing stuff. I went to dance class, Old Applegate's craft fair, and to see a movie at the 112 Drive-In. We did have a nice, quiet dinner and a soak in the Jacuzzi tub at my parents' Sunday night. Advice: if you are ever in the vicinity of Fayetteville on the day of a home football game, walk (don't drive, whatever you do!) down to 6th Street when the game has just ended and watch the most horriffic but funny traffic fiasco. They stop traffic on 6th to let cars out of side streets - for ten minutes at a time, while four or five lanes of traffic back up through several lights; block off the entirety of 6th at the intersection with Razorback for pedestrians while cars are routed south onto Razorback, which has been turned into a no-exit one way street to the Cato Springs exit onto 540 for the occasion; and while there is some pretense at directing this congested swarm of people and cars, it's mostly chaos and I don't see how there aren't more accidents. This is what you get when you build a stadium that holds more people than there are parking spaces in a 10-mile radius without, for instance, building a parking garage or at least some pedestrian overpasses. Nah, pedestrian overpasses would be too useful; students, including elementary and high school kids, would use them every day to cross a very busy five-lane street.
* Now that I'm done ranting about the idiocy of the university and the town in which it resides, I can rant about Old Applegate. Why bother filling two long buildings and three or four rows of tents if half of it is going to be the same stuff? For instance, there were at least two Guatemalan sweater vendors/importers, two basket vendors selling the exact same baskets (totally unconnected with one another!), and entirely too many cutesy painted things done in amazingly similar styles. I guess if I had never been to the War Eagle fair, I wouldn't be so horrified. It's amazing how different a juried show is from one that takes anyone who can pay the fee.
10/17/03:
* The sound you're hearing is my horrific screaming. But it's Friday and I got paid and there are only 45 more minutes to this workday, thank goodness. Next week better not be like this one was. I'll go crazy. Well, okay, crazier.
10/15/03:
* 1600-odd AI AGID samples, ELISAs that need to be done, and half the morning spent trying to find out what a company wants me to do with the 130 serum samples they submitted. I shoulda stayed home. Maybe tomorrow I'll call in dead. I bet I sleep good tonight! Now, excuse me while I go take some naprosyn to keep the upper half of my body from screaming in agony.
10/14/03:
* Today sucks. I had trouble getting to sleep, so I hit the snooze four times instead of the usual two or three. I feel like somebody went through and hit me on every one of my joints. My head does't feel so spiffy, either. Oh yeah, a cold front went through last night. And I managed to break a capillary tube into little splinters, which I promply got stuck in my fingers. Coherent speech seems to be beyond me and I can't seem to type, either - I've retyped parts of this entry five times! Plus, even though I ate breakfast, I got hungry around ten anyway. I'm still hungry.
10/13/03:
* EEEEEEEE! It's Monday the 13th! I consider that much worse than Fridays the 13th. After all, Mondays have so much more potential to suck. This one's not too bad so far, though.
* I spent most of this past weekend seriously unwinding. I had two glasses of wine Friday and managed to get pretty tipsy - it helps to start on an empty stomach. The guys got thoroughly wasted and stayed up till almost dawn talking about "guy stuff" like female chestal endowments and facial hair. I got up and went to dance class the next morning, took Mike home amid the homecoming madness (luckily, the game had already started!), and lounged around with my family out at my parents'. I slept 12 hours Saturday night! And spent most of Sunday knitting outside, it was gorgeous out. Too bad we don't get Colombus Day off like the Feds do, I could have laid around today, too.
10/10/03:
* If it weren't Friday, I'd shoot you. I am having a busy day! The kind where my back ends up hurting and I'm exhausted. I started to post this morning and IE locked up and shut itself off. I did 1,086 AI samples today. I am going home soon and having a glass of wine, or two. Maybe a beer, too.
10/9/03:
* Is it just me, or is the idea of "Dubya" as a blogger kinda scary? Luckily, it appears to mostly be (incredibly biased) news clippings and daily agenda, not even posted by the man. As long as I don't have to listen to the doofus talk!
* I stayed up way too late last night. I am sooooo sleepy today, and the darkness of thunderstorms is not helping. That'll teach me to hang out watching kung-fu movies and anime on a "school night".
10/8/03:
* Cheesy pop causes insanity! I had some horrible ad going through my head, but the phone number I was thinking didn't fit in the jingle. That's because it was 867-5309, which I now have stuck in my head with the ad. I hate having a phonographic memory sometimes.
* Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? I do. A lot. As well as passionately desire him, physically. ;) I am so lucky. (So is he, and i remind him of that occasionally. He's a little spoiled, even, but it's all my fault.) If either of us had held out for "love at first sight", then we might not have each other. It's fascinating how the myth of instantly knowing your soulmate when you see them survives. I guess it's easier than thinking that you have to go out, meet people, and spend time with the ones you sorta like until you realize that you deeply love one of them.
10/7/03:
* I am the lizard queen! No, really, I'm almost that loopy. I have no idea why; as Mike pointed out, this sort of weather usually makes me crabby from the sinusitis and arthritis. I'm hurtin', but inexplicably not cranky. Maybe it's the recent improvement in a particular area of my life - thanks, Sweetie! I like being loopy instead of cranky.
10/6/03:
* You can't see it, but I'm making a face that sums up my attitude this morning. Bleah. I bought more yarn this weekend, naughty me. Somehow, I've managed to avoid grocery shopping, though. I know I'm not the only one who lets domestic things slide when I'm in a creative mood, but I guess it would be good to eat!
10/3/03:
* You know you do it. I do it too. But it took you are a china shop, i am a bull to define it: Chaos-bating. Mike is especially prone to this form of debate. We should embrace it and practice it as much as possible!
* Should we talk about the weather? Should we talk about the government? (With apologies to REM) Neither one is a happy subject right now. I'll talk about creativity, instead. I took this CREAX Creativity Self-Assessment and got a 60, just a few points abouve average. I think of myself as a creative person; an artist and a handcrafter. Sure, the media in which I work are all fairly structured: beading, knitting, sewing, metalwork, web design. Although I do certainly get inspiration and technique from outside sources, I rarely just follow a pattern as it's written. Only occasionally do I use other people's patterns, at least for beading and knitting - I dislike drafting clothing patterns, so I still buy the commercial kind when I need a particular garment.
* Do these little bits of laziness make me less creative? Does the orderliness imposed by my mind negate the original portions of my ideas? I don't think so! I just don't see how a tendency towards logical thought makes my creative ideas any less valid. That seems to be how our society currently views such things, though. How silly.
10/2/03:
* Wow, is this week really almost over? Goodie. All the joints on my right side hurt, enough that I'm wearing the dreaded wrist brace even though I've been taking large quantities of naprosyn. I blame it on the cold; it was cold enough to turn the heat on last night! Cold weather is good for snuggling, though. Snuggle snuggle snuggle.
* I'm working on the RSS for this page. It's not going well, because everything I've foind on the subject so far is either too simplistic or way too much information. Am I the only non-IT prefessional in the world that likes to do this stuff myself?
10/1/03:
* Entry goes here. No, really, I'm posting today. It's just hard for some reason. Probably because I'm trying not to be whiny. I probably seriously annoyed Mike last night because I couldn't restrain the whine when it took him longer than I expected to fix supper for us. Three hours it took him, to make homemade spaghetti sauce. I was grateful that he cooked for us, and it was delicious; but if I'd known, I'd have had a snack - low blood sugar makes me cranky! And I've been having trouble waking up early enough to have breakfast, which means that by lunchtime, I'm ravenous and cranky from lack of food, and it seems to be causing me headaches. Other people, too, I imagine.
9/30/03:
* It must be autumn; it's chilly and dreary. I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt and a fleece pullover, too. And it's sorta dark when I get up, instead of painfully bright. I've just discovered, via being jennifer garrett, that Margaret Cho has a blog, which I will now read - it's good. Comic strips and comics' blogs are definitely something to look forward to every day, unlike the weather. To think I usually love autumn!
I found that, according to this Longevity Game, I'll live to age 91. Maybe I should go make some of that Margarita Cake from Playing with my food, and other things to celebrate. Oh yeah, that would involve baking, which I haven't managed to do yet. I made myself a little book of baking lessons and recipes, but I haven't made any of the stuff. Actually, I slept most of yesterday evening in the recliner, went to bed at 8:30, and still had trouble getting up when my alarm went off. This is mostly because I started my period yesterday and had a full day at work. Horrible cramps and fatigue mark my every menstrual experience. I miss the Pill. I still want a baby.
9/29/03:
* Back to work. The bead cave was great, and it was wonderful to see everyone and meet new people. I learned some things that I've been interested in for a while, and I'm really happy about the progress I've made on freeform; I've been trying to make a truly freeform piece for three years, but they have all been a bit too even and symmetrical. Mom came with me and had a great time, as well. My husband even cleaned the carpet in the office while I was gone! I miss being on vacation, but it's kinda good to be back to work, too.
9/18/03:
* RSS for kwicz, coming soon? It's a thought. I may only do it for the weblogs, but I feel like it's worth trying. There's a lot of stuff I want to do to this site next week while we're on vacation, but I don't know how much will actually get done...
* That reminds me, My Photo Album is up and actually has pictures in it, thanks to Semiautomatic Monkey, who uploaded them for me while I was at Shimmyfest. Now you can see my dance costume! I made it myself.
9/17/03:
* vs. Spy has an exceptionally good post about freedom of religion today. You have to scroll down past the bits about video games, but it's worth reading. He does get...forceful about it, but the point is valid: Nobody has the right to make civil laws for purely religious reasons, because nobody has the right to impose their religion on anybody else. The idiotic proposed ban on gay marriage brought this on, but there are so many other things that this point applies to. Like prayer in schools - you can have "quiet time" in your classrooms, but it is unconstitutional and stupid to basically force children (who will generally go along with whatever an authority figure says) to have prayer time, or to even tell them that your moment of silence is for prayer. If prayer is taught at home and at church, why does it need to be taught or even endorsed in public schools? And if a family chooses not to teach prayer - or any other religious worship - to their children, how is that any of our business in any way?
* Another one is abortion. I believe that abortion is murder, but I don't believe that making it illegal will keep it from happening. Only education can keep people from making bad choices, and the only way to stop abortions from being performed is to teach people about their options in birth control (including, but not only, abstinence) and other ways of dealing with unwanted pregnancy.
9/16/03:
* Aliens! No, wait, that's just in my head. I'm less tired, though. I went to bed at 9:30 and was asleep by 10, so I might have actually gotten enough sleep. Now if I can just keep doing that... Ha! We go on vacation next week, nine days of doing only things we want to do - including the Bead Cave. I bet I won't keep my sleep schedule, and neither will Phillip.
9/15/03:
* It feels a little more like autumn here. It got below 50F last night! Good weenie roasting weather, although it rained most of the weekend. My family even sat around the little fire when we roasted hot dogs last night. I love autumn, and I'm really looking forward to the leaves turning. Not as much as I'm looking forward to our vacation next week, though!
* I'd say that Shimmyfest was a success. I went to the workshop Saturday, and we danced in the show that night. Add to that the two hours of rehearsal Friday night - I have never danced that much in such a short period, even at other dance workshops! The show was amazing. Many different types of "belly" dance were performed, all fun to watch and great costumes.
9/10/03:
* It's volleyball day. I don't really feel like playing. I'm probably going to play anyway. What's wrong with this picture? I hope i"m not starting another weird codependent thing where I feel like I have to do everything everybody wants me to do. It's bad enough that my employment is getting more uncertain. I don't need for my relationships to get all screwy.
9/9/03:
* My alarm is still set to go off early, but I'm not getting ot bed early. This results in me being ridiculously tired. Okay, I did stay up too late all weekend and it's my own fault that I haven't gone to bed before ten the last couple of nights. Still, the zombification that results from lack of sleep is keeping me from doing anything productive...like make the new top for my dance costume, or finish the baby sweater. Or cook, we've eaten junk food the last few nights. I intend to bake sometime this week.
* It's official - we are dancing at the Shimmyfest show that night. It will be on Saturday, Sept. 13 at 7:30, in the Clarion in Fayetteville; $10 to get in.
9/8/03:
* Weekend posting just didn't happen. The party Friday was great, but we didn't get home until almost 4 am! So we slept most of Saturday. Yesterday I visited Mike, and my Mom, instead of working on this site like I intended. Oh, I got a little done; just on the Crafts page, but I did separate out the WIP log and crafty weblog links onto a Crafty Weblog page. I just need to post some patterns on the Crafts page to finish that off. I may rethink the layout of all my other pages too, though. Two columns may work better after all. Especially if I'm dividing up all the pages into basically content and links - that only requires two sections. The three-column layout is nifty, but I have to admit that it doesn't really seem necessary.
9/5/03:
* Happy Birthday Mike! 30 this year, but who cares? I'm too close to that age to think it's a big deal, although my sister will probably tease me about it when the time comes.
* Got my hair cut yesterday, and did some shopping, including six balls of purple Omegacryl...I love this yarn, but it seems to be going away, the only time I see it is on clearance. I also bought six medium-size stackable clear storage boxes and two big clear underbed boxes, the better to corral the craft stuff. I just realized that if I want a different top to perform in, I had better get crackin', so I plan to spend some time tomorrow drafting a pattern.
9/4/03:
* Now I should be up. I didn't get to sleep until after 3 am. I did figure out how to get my columns to dosplay properly, though. Apparently, most browsers divvy up the page for the columns, and THEN adds the padding, so I just had to make my floating percentages from adding up to 100%. All better, and it adjusts to any size window or display setting (so far...)! Now if I could just get the pics and interactives up...
* What the hell am I doing up at 2 am?? I knitted all the decreases on the baby sweater sleeve and I'm here fiddling with my web site. I did go to bed, do a crossword puzzle, and turn out the light as per usual, but I couldn't fall asleep. I can't get the CSS worked out for my layout - it displays wrong if your monitor's resolution is less than 800x600 and my trial solution turned out even worse!
9/3/03:
* Yesterday, the sun came out for maybe an hour, total. Today, it's in hiding. It's supposed to be sunny, dammit! I'm sorta bummed because I got my period. That adds back aches and cramps to my face-swelling sinus issues. I'm sick of it. I want a baby. At this point, I almost just want to go back on the Pill!
9/2/03:
* The sun is finally coming out. It isn't helping my poor head yet, though. I feel like my face is going to pop off. Luckily, I as all caught up at work on Friday, so I don't have much to do today. Mike wrote about his beadwork experience, go read it. I did go get shelves for the office/craft stuff organization project last night, but that was about it for my productiveness on Labor Day.
* All this humidity is making my hair freaky! I blew it dry (nominally straight) yesterday, and tried to re-straighten it this morning, but it's already wavy-weird again, even though it's still very short (above the ears). My hair isn't particularly curly, but it certainly does its own thing sometimes...I'll be glad when this mess is long enough to body wave - at least then the waves won't be so random and unevenly distributed!