Well....

If it's not one thing, it's another.

And things were going so well. Kevin's mostly happy with his job (despite not getting paid what he's worth, and while it's usually true that no one does, most people aren't making 20% below the minimum of their pay grade EITHER, so Dendrite can fuck me - and frequently does.) But hey, at least he's happy.

We've finally found out what was causing our nephew, Mike, to try to kill himself, and with a cause, they can actually work on fixing it, and he's doing loads better. That's good.

Kevin and I don't currently owe money to anyone. We're caught up on bills and we're actually able to put a little money aside in savings.

I'm almost done with my dentist appointments. I have 2 in January to get my last two crowns fitted, and then I'll be finally done with that. Huzzah.

And then....

My mother has breast cancer.

Why is there never anything helpful to say about these sorts of things. "Sorry you're sick. Hope you don't die." "Hmmm, can I have all your stuff when you're dead?" It sucks that I sit there on the phone, gaping and just having no idea what to say. Maybe they should teach a college course on "shit to say that doesn't sound completely stupid in the face of a tragedy." I know I should have signed up for it.

Yes, they caught it early. Yes, breast cancer is survivable. Yes, it's still one of the leading killers of women in the United States. I know all this. I knew it even before she told me she had it.

And people keep asking me "If there's anything I can do..." and there's a bitter, nasty part of me that wants to scream at them... "What the FUCK do you think you can do? Because, really, if you're sitting on the cure for cancer just so you can offer it to me at a convenient time, you're a real jackass." I don't say that, though, because it's rude. And I do know that people love me and care, and they wish there was something they could do. And I'm not even mad at them, I'm just mad at the situation. Still... "What the fuck, man, what the fuck. No, there's nothing you can DO. There's nothing I can do. We have to just hope that there's something the goddamn doctor can do aside from sending my mom a BIG HUGE bill."

Ditto, I'm mad at my mom. One of the first things she said to me was "Don't tell your dad, ok?" Oh for fuck's sake woman. Look, I know she's vain and self-centered from time to time, but jesus h christ, get a stepladder and get the fuck over it already. She's been divorced for fifteen YEARS. It's about time that she stop giving a royal FUCK what he thinks. What does she think he's gonna do, anyway? Gloat? My dad may not have been the most wonderful husband on the planet, but jesus, he's not like that. And even if he used to be, he's not anymore.

I feel sort of alone in this... my friends don't really like my mom much. She's sort of neurotic and immature. I don't have any family support in this; I've disowned (and been disowned by) most of my aunts and cousins and the like. It might be nice to talk to someone else who actually cares about my mom, you know? My friends care about me, and believe me, I appreciate that. But they don't generally care about my MOM. That's ok, and I don't blame them for it, but gods, I do wish I had someone to talk to who does care about her.

I can't decide if the timing of the rest of my life is good, or bad. I have Jess's birthday party this weekend, and Liz's baby shower next weekend, and I still have a ton of stuff to do, so I'm staying really busy. But I'm also having a lot of trouble focusing on the tasks at hand. I stood there blankly at the bank the other day for like ten minutes with my mouth open, disconcerting the teller, while I tried to remember why I'd gone there in the first place. (To get quarters.)

I dunno. I hate feeling lost and useless like this.

And I don't know what to do.

So, Kevin and I are having the proverbial fuckload of people over tomorrow...

What started as an idle "Oh, I want to make tacos" has exploded into a smallish horde descending upon my tiny little apartment. I think my thoughts went something like this...

Tacos are good.

Let's make tacos.

Whenever I make tacos, there are always tons of leftovers, if I'm just making for Kevin and I.

Leftovers go bad in the fridge.

Let's invite a few people over.

Um... ok, so I lose track of it after that, but there are somewhere around five (maybe six?) adults and one toddler headed to my apartment expecting food and social-stuff.

That's fine. Except Kevin has this hissy-fit thing about the house being clean if we're expecting more than one or two guests. Particularly if it's someone who hasn't been here before, or who doesn't come over often. Which is fine, and the house needs a bit of a pick-up anyway.

We're almost wrapped up with the cleaning (dishes, trash, sweep, mop, pickup clutter...) and Kevin's dragging our old Kenmore out into the living room. This vacuum, you must understand, is as old as our marriage. I had a vacuum in college that burst into flames shortly before Matt and I broke up, and the one I bought to replace it burned out about four months before Kevin and I got married.

Kevin's mom bought us one for our wedding present and tonight, at 10pm, gave up the ghost. So, Kevin meddled with it for a while, took out enough cat and human hair to make a large dog, and it still wouldn't go.

So... 10:30 at night and I'm driving to the Wal-mart to buy a new vacuum. (Because you know, once you get half the room vacuumed, you need to do the rest of the job...) I end up standing next to this fretting grandmother, who's son's wife hates her guts and is bringing over the new 2 week old baby and has said that if there's a speck - a SPECK, mind you - of dog hair on the sofa, she's taking the baby away and not going over there again, because babies are so sensitive that way. (Poor Jesus, it's a wonder he got to the Cross at all, being born in a barn, you know!) (Why is it that I always end up talking to the nutjobs at the store?) (Why did I feel the need to have four parentheticals in one sentence??)

So, now I have a new vacuum. And a really... really... REALLY clean floor. So people can come over and drop taco bits all over it.

Despite the fact that it's usually insipid and rather boring, Kevin and I make a habit of attending Work Functions. Part of this is because a Work Function is an attempt to raise employee morale, and we think those sorts of things should be encouraged... Secondly, it's free food and drinks. Third, there's face-time with the big-timers in the company, which can become important in later promotions, projects, etc. Fourth, there are Prizes... usually a raffle of some sort of gift cards and whatnot... and hey, who doesn't need a bit of extra something around the holidays?

This year, going was a little harder than normal. Because of issues in her life, my mother-in-law was unable to babysit for us, and we didn't know she wasn't going to be able to until about four days before the event. And our back-up babysitter had another babysitting appointment on the 2nd. However, our back-up babysitter is going to Florida for 8 months for an internship with Disney, and she wants to raise all the money she can before she goes there to not get paid crap for working for 8 months so that she can have some good experience to put on her resume. (Irony #1: raising money so you can go work...)

So, we get dressed up to go. For the record, I pre-planned an outfit specifically for this event. I didn't, however, get to wear it. We hit a snag. Specifically, when I put the sweater on, the cuffs came off. ( I'm going to see if I can take it back, but I'm not sure I'll be able to, since I bought the outfit in October.) (Irony #2: When I don't pre-plan, everything works out fine. Pre-planning? I end up having to dig something out of the bottom of my closet anyway.)

We're almost ready to go, and I comment to the babysitter that it'll be good to get out of the house for a while, I've been doing very little aside from Warcraft for the last two weeks or so. A few minutes before we actually leave, I get a phone beep from one of my guildies telling me that there is Guild Drama. I spent the entire car ride to the party calling guildies and beeping with them to figure out what's going on, and the entire party stewing and being worried about Warcraft. (Oh, it's getting thick in here...)

Finally, we're at the party, I've had a few drinks and am trying to relax a little. We're cornered by one of Kevin's co-workers that he's none-too-fond of and get stuck sitting at the table with said co-worker. We end up sitting at a table with: the head of security who yelled and screamed at Kevin on his first day at work because Kevin's boss hadn't bothered to notify the head of security that there was a new employee; the woman who both threatened to pinch my baby when she was 13 days old because she was 'too quiet to actually be alive' and who stole a promotion out from under Kevin after he already had the training to get the promotion, and after two years in the position has done exactly NOTHING; and the Director of Kevin's department. Oh yeah, and the lady from HR who actually organized the thing who put us to work handing out disposable cameras. I forgot about her because once we handed out the cameras, she didn't come back to her chair. Oh. Rapture. (Ok, that's not irony, that just sucked.)

So, we're eating our salads and listening to the Very Bad DJ try to pump things up and be enthusiastic while everyone's looking at him with these 'oh, will you shut up' flat expressions, when they start the prize drawings. Three raffle tickets will be drawn every hour, and people will get prizes. I do a quick headcount. Assuming that only half the people there are employees, and only the employees got tickets, I figure the chances for us to win something are actually fairly good. The event lasts from 6-11, that's 15 people who are going to win prizes. There are about... 80 people there, or 40 employees.

"Aaaaaand, our first prize is 2 - that's right, folks, you heard me! - 2 $25 gift certificates to The SMOKEY BONES!" The DJ makes fake cheering noises into the microphone.

"What's that?" says the wife of the security guy.

"It's a really awful resturant," says Kevin.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," I agree. "We went there once. It was vile."

Kevin explains further, "They use donut dough to coat their onion rings. And then they salt it."

Job-Thief Lady, "That doesn't sound very good."

Kevin, "It's not. And their ribs aren't very good either. The Sauce is awful."

Meanwhile the DJ is up rumaging around in the jar for the winning ticket.

Me: "Yeah, I wouldn't go there again if you paid me."

DJ: "And the winner is... 329271."

Kevin glances at his ticket. "Oh. Dear god." 329271.

Yeah... Isn't it Ironic?

(Anyone want to trade $50 worth of Gift Certificates to ANYWHERE ELSE with us?)

18 months ago, my 9 year old nephew attempted to hang himself and was hospitalized for a few weeks. They started him on many, many drugs and therapy.

2 days ago, my 10-year old nephew attempted to kill himself again and is back in the hospital.

Upstairs from us, a young single mother lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her three-year-old son. She's been dating a bit recently.

Well, ok, she's been dating a lot. (And yes, I know, I'm turning into the nosy neighbor. Can't help it, even I notice some things...)

Today, while we were going into the apartment after running some errands, we saw one of the lady's dates walking down the stairs, the boy behind him. I've seen this fellow a few times recently - maybe they're getting serious...

"Erik!" says the little boy. He's going down the stairs one at a time. "I can come with you?"

"Yeah, you're coming with me," Erik says. He nods at us and waits at the bottom of the steps for the little boy.

"You won't leave me?"

"No, I won't leave you."

"I'm coming, right? You won't leave me behind?"

"I'm waiting right here for you."

"Good." The little boy reaches up and takes Erik's hand. "Ever'body always leaves me."

"Well, I'm not."

The last few weeks, I've heard this song on the TV for a verizon commercial about their new cool music phones (of course, Kevin wants one. He always wants the latest tech-toys). I like the song, although I'm not the slightest bit interested in the cell phone. I heart my cellphone.

However, the guy in the song doesn't sing anything remotely like lyrics that I could figure out what he was saying... so I was having a lot of trouble finding the song to download.

Kevin was giving me suggestions about this while we were out running errands last night - using google, playing the top 100 iTunes songs, checking Verizon's web page, etc - when a pair of young girls turned into the parkinglot in a PoS truck, blaring the song in question at full volume.

Hmmm.

We got Jess into a cart and headed into the Target. A moment later, the girls walked by us, chatting and smoking cigarettes. They were young, one heavy, one rail thin, both with tattoos and 'exotic piercings' and wearing tank tops that showed off their bellies and 'california license plates'.

"Excuse me," said I, "can I ask you a quick question?"

Both girls looked actively horrified. Their eyes flickered from me - heavy set mommy carrying a diaper bag over her shoulder, hair neatly tied up, wearing a toddler stained t-shirt and a bohemian skirt with no jewelry - to Kevin - dressed for work and looking very neat in his slacks and button-down shirt with his hair tied back in a queue - to Jess, who was banging on the bar of the cart and demanding a 'cho'kit shake!'.

"Um.... I guess," said one, taking her cigarette out of her mouth and - swear to god - *hiding* it behind her back.

"That song you were playing, when you came into the parkinglot -" Now the rail thin girl looks horribly embarrassed, as if I'm going to berate her for playing music at full volume. "What is it? I've heard it on the tv a few times, and I really like it, but I can't find it to download."

"Oh. um... OH!" says the first girl. "Oh, it's Sean Paul! He's really great, you know!" Her whole face lights up.

"Yeah," says the second girl. "That song's called Temperature. You like it? Really?"

"Yeah," I say. "I've been trying to get a hold of a copy for a while now."

"Coooool," they both say together. The first girl takes a drag off her cigarette. The second girl grins at Jess and makes the little half-wave that people give to children sometimes.

I thank them, and Kevin and I walk into the store. The two girls stay outside to finish their smokes.

"Coool!" says one girl to the other, "Can't wait to blog this!"

Me either, sweetheart. Me either.

Backtrack:

When I was a junior in college, I had a terrible, terrible job at a local subshop. Not subway, but one of the knock-off individually owned crappy sub shops that you sometimes see sprouting up like weeds in strip malls... For whatever reason, the owner decided that bright orange and yellow were good colors and that was what color the shop was, and what color the uniforms were. Yuck. Bought to give you a headache, just to be inside the place for ten minutes, much less work there.

The owner, Jeff, wasn't so great either. He had a little tattoo of a swastika on his left hand between his thumb and forefinger and exactly the right kind of attitude to go along with that. He was the type who used to be grovelingly polite to his customers, and as soon as one who was African-American left the shop, he'd comment about the person's choice of sub. Usually commenting that "niggers bought ham subs because ham is the only word they could read." That's a quote, mind. He really, really said that. GYAH.

The job, to put it frankly, sucked. The only good things about the job were the two delivery drivers, Sara and - god, I can't remember the guy's name and that's awful, because he was murdered a few months ago, and I felt really bad when I heard about it... I can picture him, but I can't stick a name on his face. Anyway, the three of us hung out a lot, both in the store and outside it.

Sara went to the same school as I, and after I quit the horrible job (and she stayed a while longer) we all still hung out together from time to time.

Evntually we got to be good friends, me and Sara, that is. The guy eventually fell out of my social group, which may be why my memory doesn't have a good grasp on his name.

Sara was the bride's maid at my wedding, and she was a good friend to me and Kevin for a long time.

Eventually, something happened. I'm not really sure what, exactly. Apparently things I did upset her, and rather than talk about them like a reasonable person, she let them build up until it wasn't possible to repair the relationship.

She came over to my apartment one day and told me, quite plainly, that she didn't want to be friends anymore, goodbye.

Well.

Recently:

Sara called me the other day. We've seen each other from time to time over the last two or three years. Not much, and there's always been this sort of quiet awkwardness between us. I haven't exactly tried to avoid her, but there's really been no great urgency on my part to do so. We don't run with the same circle of friends much anymore, and not seeing her is easy.

But she called me the other day. Apparently, she's in a bit of trouble at her place of employement, the details of which have overwhelmed me, and really, it's not my place to talk about them anyway...

She wanted to borrow my keychain drive - she figured that being a tech-toy geek, I'd have one. As a matter of fact, Kevin and I each have one. I said she could, and she came down that day to get it.

We talked a little, had dinner, talked some more.

I'm not really sure what's going on. I've had more than one 'friend' use me as a landing pad before... only show up when they need something, and otherwise, I'm non-existant, as far as their concerned.

Before she left, she said to me, "Thank you for this. I didn't know if you'd be willing to talk to me again."

"Everyone deserves a second chance," said I. "Even me."

That's true enough, as far as it goes, and lord knows I've given some friends more than a second chance...

But I've also been burned. A lot. And I'm not going to do it again. This is it. I'm willing to start over, if she is. But I'm not staying on this particular merry-go-round very long... if she's just looking for a crash-pad, I'll sweep her off.

Like I said, I went on vacation to the Outer Banks last week.

It wasn't really a vacation, though. It was a scrapbooking get-away. I really needed one. It's hard to scrap at home. In order to get anything done, I have to haul out our folding card table, set up two tv-dinner trays next to it, set up my stuff, scrap for a while either when Jess is down for a nap or after she's gone off to bed, then clean up and put everything away after I'm done. This is usually accompanied by Kevin watching some movie or other that I don't like (Bond, James Bond...) and no one to ask whether or not something looks good or if they like this picture better than that.

I can get projects done that way, but I don't like it. I much prefer the times when I can sit around with a bunch of friends and scrap. Someone else who actually cares if this mat looks better than that, and has suggestions and I can oooh over someone else's design (Liz in particular tends to have spectacular ideas and the patience to carry through with an impressive theme).

Thus, a weekend-long scrapbook event, held a few hours away from husband, child, messy house - and above all no having to listen to James Bond and all the women who think he's the shit rather than what he is, which is a shit - seemed ideal.

And I confess, I got a lot of work done. I did thirty pages worth of my wedding album (except for the journalling) and am very pleased with the layout thereof. I bought a couple of things that I needed to complete my project, but didn't spend as much money as I'd expected, which is also a plus.

At the end of the weekend, however, I was desperately glad to get home.

I knew three other women there aside from Liz, but not what you'd call 'well'. Most of them, however, know each other... which meant there was a lot of talking about things I didn't know about or people I didn't know. Which is fine, and I know no one was trying to exclude me or anything.

But also, a lot of the ladies there were... well, let's just say under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be inviting them over to dinner. Not that anyone was really awful or anything - they weren't. Don't get me wrong, they're nice people. (Well, except for this one lady who shall remain nameless that I did my best to ignore and still found myself hefting my personal trimmer for projectile appropriateness and wondering if I could clear two other people in order to beam her in the head.) They're just for the most part not my people.

I felt like I had to be on my better behavior (not my best behavior, since honestly, this is me, and I don't have best behavior.) I had to watch what I said. I had to not call a few people homophobic idiots. I had to restrain my eyes from rolling too much. These aren't my people, I reminded myself. And it does no good whatsoever to start a fight with people whose minds won't be changed. Unless you're Greg and you like starting fights for no reason even if - especially if - you won't change anyone's mind, but you might score a few verbal zingers.

And listening to people talk about their diets. GAH! Is there anything more boring and brain-numbing than listen to a bunch of women who could fit in the shadow of my finger bitch and moan about their weight gain and loss and diet plans and excercize? I thought not. (And I might add, most of them ate five times as much as I did during the weekend.)

Not to mention the whole "wow, I feel like I'm back in a college dorm" crap. I love Liz to death, I do. But sharing a room with her all weekend made me positively ache for my husband - who sleeps through earthquakes and thus I don't have to feel self-conscious about waking him up every time I sniffle - and my comfortable bed and noises that I'm used to. Kevin snores, sometimes. I'm used to that. I'm not used to Liz, though, and the first night there, I woke up every time she rolled over. (Also, I didn't think to bring a clock, and every time I woke up, I had no idea what time it was, which for some reason always makes it harder for me to think.)

And I accidentally packed Liz's camera while we were getting ready to leave Sunday morning, so when Liz couldn't find her camera and went Nuclear, it was very, very uncomfortable. Finding out that I'd been the one to accidentally misplace it was worse. So the last day was completely ruined - not that there's anything exciting about packing and saying goodbye to people I barely know - and Liz's mood was very touchy the whole drive back.

On the plus side, she wasn't that far out of my house when I found the damned thing and got it back to her, so at least I didn't have to hold on to it for 2 weeks until she comes down to visit this weekend. I simply adore being the reason for someone's pissy mood.

It was a productive weekend for scrapping. But I'm not sure I'll want to do it again.

Those of you who keep track of these things might have noticed that I haven't mentioned Kevin and his recent job-issues here very specifically.

I was starting to think I'd jinxed us or something. In fact, I do still think that, to some degree, since this is the first time I haven't talked about a thing lots and lots, and the first time that a thing has actually gone right.

Kevin's getting a promotion at his company.

Technical Project Manager.

Which sounds nice. He'll go back to working a 'normal' schedule (Mon - Friday, 8:30-5pm) which he hasn't actually worked since we left Lynchburg and GE. No more 12 hour shifts. No more waking up at 4am in the goddamn morning. No more on-call. (On the other hand, no more 4 day weekends, which I might miss from time to time.)

Stupid, stupid corporate policies dictate that he's not allowed to get more than a 20% raise at a time. It's this particular issue that's kept him from being seriously considered for other positions. Operators get paid for shit. He hasn't made enough money to make more money...

Which did mean that the offer on the table for accepting the promotion (he's current mid-way in Salary Band A) to a Salary Band B position was pathetic. He was offered something like $7,000 less than the very bottom end of the Salary B Band. And $4,000 less than the position was originally marked for on the hire sheet.

Needless to say, this did not make me the least bit happy. Especially since Kevin's set this arbitrary number of cash inflow necessary before I'm allowed to have another child.

However, what the HR rep neglected to mention was that in 6 months, he'd get an evaluation and another good sized raise to bring him up to the bottom of the salary B band.

So, I am content.

I have two best girlfriends; Liz and Karen.

Liz lives fairly close, about 40 miles away. I don't see her very often. We chat online. Alot.

Karen lives far away, about 600 miles. I don't see her very often, either. We chat online. Even more.

Because of this, I often forget that they really live in very different places.

I was.... viciously reminded of that fact today when I was hanging up my daughter's coats.

You heard me. Coats. Plural. More than one coat.

I counted. She has: 2 full thick winter coats, one rain jacket, 5 wraps, 3 hooded sweaters/sweatshirts, and 2 thick winter sweaters. All but one of these was a present from Karen.

Yeah. Karen does not live in the south. At all.

Not even a little bit.

Last night, Kevin and I are laying around in bed, just sort of chatting... I was telling him some various things I'd heard about sibs that sort of... I couldn't decide if they bothered me or not.

Example one:

Friend A was talking about how that they keep a running total of their children's christmas and birthday presents and always include the 'difference' in cash in one kid's present and/or stocking. So, Mom and Dad always spend exactly the same amount of money on each child.

Example two:

Friend B was telling me how that when her brother asked for a TV one year for Christmas, she also got a TV for Christmas, that she didn't actually want, in the interests of being 'fair'.

I can't decide if I think these two things are a good idea, or a bad idea. As I didn't have any sibblings, the whole "mom likes you better" idea never occured to me... Kevin says it never occured to him, either, to wonder about the monetary value of his gifts and if Cathie or Rich got 'more' or 'less' presents than he did.

On the other hand, I can see not wanting to favor one child over the other.

On the other, other hand, that's a lot of bloody bookkeeping.

One thing led to another and I was telling him about how I had ended up with a television set of my own when I was around 11 or 12.

"Well, you know M.A.S.H.? That show ended, and normally the TV series ran from 7pm - 8pm, but the series final was a special 2 or 3 hour thing that ran from 8pm - 10 (or maybe it was 11). "

Kevin: "Much later than your bed time."

KT: "Yeah, and we were watching it out in the living room and I yawned."

Kevin: "And your dad told you to go to bed before you fell asleep on the sofa."

KT: ::looking at him sidelong:: "Yeeees. And then the next holiday, I got a TV from my mother."

Kevin: "So your mom said you could watch TV as late as you wanted and your dad wouldn't have to know if you were yawning."

KT: "I've told you this story before?"

Kevin: "No. I just know your parents this well by now."

*rimshot*

(You know, I never did see the end of that series.... I wonder if I can Netflix it.)

I'd suggest walking away from this entry, if you're not pleased with things like dentistry or long, vaguely gross details. Just, you know, so you know.

I don't generally make New Year's Resolutions, just on the idea that it's sort of pointless to make a resolution, as most of the time, no one follows them anyway, and honestly, I can find plenty of things to feel guilty about without volunteering to add more of them to my life.

That being said, my resolutions, when I do make them, tend to be sort of open-ended... and flexible. I find I work better that way. For instance, I never actually resolved to quit smoking. I just did it when I was ready to do it. And, speaking of, in February, it will be 8 years since I quit. Which is pretty damn impressive, and I only occasionally miss smoking now. Usually when I'm stressed beyond belief.

This year, however, I had a number of things I was dissatisfied with, and decided to make some changes. As it happened, the first one I had already started the process with back in November and it so happened to be taking place right after the first of the year, and so it was just convenient that way and had nothing really whatsoever to do with New Years at all.

That being: Go to the dentist.

I have not been to the dentist in a long, long time. It's been so long really that I don't actually remember when it was, just that it was long ago. I was still back in Lynchburg, if that helps anyone else place about whenish.

I know, I know. Really, I do. I know better. The problem is what the problem has always been. I cannot shit money out my ass. Dental insurance, when it's available, is a fucking joke. And for a long time, it's not been available. Kevin and I have spent the last several years digging our way out of debt. And I just... couldn't bring myself to put us back into it.

I don't usually talk about my teeth problems with anyone. It's embarassing. Not just because my teeth are vile, but because I hate admitting to people - even to people that I know and who know the situation - that my family is about 2 paychecks away from being homeless. Savings? Pah! I don't have savings. Well, we do, but it's not very much, honestly.

However, in November, I was eating something - I don't even remember what anymore, not something that had a risk, I thought of tooth destruction - and I ended up spitting out a small, silver-colored filling and a palmful of white and brown... stuff. Tooth bits. Yuck.

I examined my mouth with my tongue and discovered that the entirety of one tooth was missing from the middle. Oh joy. So, I called and made the appointment, although they couldn't see me for two months. So much for "taking new patients."

I have to confess that I've been growing more and more nervous about this appointment. There's nothing quite like knowing you've fucked up and then having to wait for the lecture on it, and knowing you're going to get the lecture about fucking up, that it's inevitable to get the lecture for fucking up... Not to mention the finances.

And that I didn't really know how bad things were. Would it, I often wondered, be cheaper and easier in the long-run to have all my teeth yanked out and replaced with dentures. I started paying attention to denture commercials. No one in those commercials is ever, ever, EVER under 50 years old.

So... today was the day.

First off, I have to say, the dentist was Very Nice. He wasn't nasty about the state of my teeth, either in words or in Significant Eyerollings towards his assistant. He didn't lecture me about not being at the dentist in recent history, either. Nor did he criticize my brushing, flossing, or hygiene. (I do, actually, do those things. Very, very regularly. I usually actually brush about 5 times a day, sometimes more. Now, a lot of that is because I get food stuck in nasty places because of holes in my teeth.) And yes, the last dentist I visited did do those things, and I resent it. I know that my mouth is in bad shape, I don't need to be lectured about it. Especially since getting lectured means that I continued to put OFF getting work done and just made it worse all the way around, including for the original dentist because he didn't get any more of my money and he could have, if he hadn't humiliated me.

So, he took some x-rays and poked and prodded at my mouth some. Fortunately, while we were talking, he asked me about any reactions to anesthetics. To which I said, "Well, local ones are fine, but if we have to do a general, we'll want to make arrangements for a hospital, since it has been known to send me into pulmanary collapse. We found that out the hard way when I had to be intubated while they put my leg back together."

He put down his tools. "What happened to your leg?"

"I was in a bad car accident, broke my leg in five places. I have some titanium in there, holding my ankle together."

He asked for more details, so I described the procedure and what pieces were still in place (1 plate, 6 small screws, 2 larger screws). Lucky I did. Apparently, there's a chance with dental work (because of all the germs in the human mouth, yay, isn't that always appealing... I hate thinking about that, so my husband is going to be very, very lucky if I kiss him again for a MONTH) that the immune system will get all wonked out as germs go from the mouth into the system (from cuts during the dental work, etc) and cause bio-rejection of my various bits and pieces to start up again. Which would mean multiple surgeries to fix my ankle again, etc etc. Not. Good.

The upshot of all this is that I have to go on massive antibiotics prior to any dental work. Which means nothing could be fixed today, and indeed, no cleaning could be done. Just because it's a nasty risk and no one wants to deal with it, not the least of which being me.

So then he mapped out all my teeth and what work needed to be done. And it's not as bad as I thought it would be, although it is not Good. By any shot.

On the plus side, I don't have gum disease, which is a fracking miracle, if you ask me. I need three root canals, 4 crowns, and 20 fillings. Yes, I know, that's a lot. But it could be a lot worse and he says he's seen much worse, and that it is, actually, all repairable. It's probably going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000. Of which my insurance pays 60%. Leaving me to pay about $3,000. Ish.

However, we have $1,300 put aside in flex spending for medical stuff. And generally about $1,500 worth of tax-returns. So... I think we can manage to pay for this. And, as a courtesy, he's not charging me for any office visits, x-rays, or cleanings provided I get the entirety of the work done.

That leads to part 2 of my 4 part New Year's Resolution, which was actually getting all the work DONE, once I'd found out what it was going to be. So, my next appointment is in about a month (I've got some prescription mouthwash that he wants me to use in the meantime to help cut down on the possibility of infection).

Funny thing is, I also got part 3 of my Resolutions started today as well.

I looked back over 2005 and realized that I'd read one (1) book that I hadn't previously read. In the entire. Year. One. (1). Pathetic. I had another book that Liz lent me that I'd skimmed through a bit before Jess poured coffee all over it, but that doesn't count. Sorry, Liz.

So, I resolved to read at least one new book per month this year. New as in I haven't previously read it, not necessarily new as in just got from the bookstore. So I brought with me my new book (on loan, also from Liz, not coffee-ated, however) for January.

And started reading. By the time I got into my dentist appointment, I was on page 80 and quite diverted.

After the appointment was over, I called Kevin to come pick me up. He didn't answer the phone. Given that he was home babysitting Jess, I thought it likely that he was changing a diaper or something and would call me back in a minute.

I sat down and started reading.

Nothing. 20 minutes later, I called again. No answer. I beeped him. He didn't beep me back. He didn't call.

I started to get annoyed. I read my book. I finished reading the book (266 pages, but still.) I beeped Liz and Karen with my verdict and annoyances.

Eventually it occured to me to call JD, who did actually come get me, about another hour or so later. I started the book over because I was bored. I'm on page 120.

Jess had, apparently, turned Kevin's phone volume to off, so it hadn't rung. He called me back just before JD picked me up in a bit of a fret. He'd finally started wondering if I was going to finish before the end of time, picked up his phone to call me and saw all the missed calls.

So, that's been my day. Makes me question the strength of my resolve, tho, to have to sit for two hours on a cold, brick step (the office closed for lunch and couldn't let me sit inside while I waited for someone to come give me a ride.)

"I swear to god, if you give that child another one of those cookies, I'm going to break your fingers."

"Oh." Eats one.

"That goes for you, too. Dad."

I'm not really sure I have anything to talk about, but I'm just going to ramble here for a while...

1 - There is a Very Large Dead Bug in my front entryway. "Front entryway" is a grand sounding word for the tiny patch of linoleum right in front of the door. I know this bug is Very Dead because it's been there for at least five days now. Laying on its buggy back with its buggy feet in the air. It's a palmetto bug.

It's still laying there because I have this thing about dead things. I really, really don't like them. So I don't really want to pick the bug up and get rid of it, but I don't actually really know what else to do with it. It's too big to get sucked up in my dustbuster.

I've mentioned to Kevin a few times that it was there and he nods and doesn't do anything about it either.

I'll probably eventually sweep it out the door. But not today.

2 - One of my friends is doing something that I think is really, really stupid. I don't think it's going to solve any of the problems that he thinks it's going to solve and I think it's going to create an entire realm of new ones that he hasn't even considered.

He is not listening to me At All when I express these things to him. This both frustrates me and makes me feel old. I thought I had another 20 years before I was supposed to be giving lectures to young people about the stupidity of their ways.

3 - I hate Christmas. Have I mentioned that? I'm sure I did. Christmas, to me, is all about my inadequacy. I never get the right gifts for people, or spend as much money as they do, or remember everyone... I don't dress right, I'm not cheery enough, I don't give money to charity, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling. Instead, I feel annoyed. I dread every minute of Christmas Carols and stupid holiday decorations and false sappiness and sentiment. I get stressed. I get upset thinking about the money I don't have to be buying gifts I can't really afford. I get too busy to get anything done right. And most of all, I just don't... feel anything.

4 - I have a veritable fleet of tiny little ships on my desktop. I think they're very, very cute, especially the ones with oar banks. For whatever reason, these little ships always make me want to play 7Th Sea.

5 - I made a double CD for Liz for her birthday present entitled From May to December. I listen to that playlist almost constantly now while I'm writing. One of the songs on the CD, Despre Tine, I have listened to 86 times since I purchased it this summer.

6 - I love making photo albums. I wish I had more time and space to make them. My current projects are Christmas presents, but the two after that I'm planning to make are For Me. Which is good, since I'd really like to keep some... the first one is Kevin and mine's wedding album. The second will be a growth album (start with a few 2-4 page spreads to mark some events, then add pages as more events happen). I'm planning to call it Jess's Journeys and cover events that Kevin and I take her to like the zoo, or museams.

7 - I need, desperately need, a title for my novel. I've been calling it "my novel" or "my current project" since I started it. The working title I just came up with the other day Soul of the Marks sounds okay, but didn't get a "oh, that's nice" from my test audience, so I'm again unhappy with it. (This is not a complaint about my test audience, that's what she's there for.)

8 - Jess has asked me several times for a "cret". Or maybe it's a "quret". I have no idea what this is, except that I apparently don't have one on my desk.

9 - I have a new addiction. Go Pets. My userid is tisfan, if you want to look me up. Be sure to say I sent you, if you join up!

10 - My English teacher from high school is publishing his third book shortly. I'm very pleased for him.

11 - I have a polaroid of me and my parents, back when I was maybe six or seven years old. We're at my grandparents' lake house up in northern New York. My mom has a really awful late seventies haircut. She looks like one of Charlie's Angels, really. My dad's got his arm around her shoulders and I'm standing in front of them, looking sullen. I'm not really sure why I keep it up there. None of us looks particularly happy... It's not even framed or anything. It's just this battered polaroid that I can't seem to bring myself to get rid of.

12 - About three months ago, Kevin asked me to sew a button on his green checked work shirt. The shirt is still folded on my desk waiting for me to repair it.

13 - Jess still has Halloween Candy left. She's had at least one piece every day since Halloween.

14 - Leaving the movies the other day (we saw the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), I said to Kevin "I thought Mr. Tumnus was cute." Kevin laughed and said "Well, maybe. Without the goat legs and the ears and all." I responded, "No, actually, I liked the ears. And the little horns. Kinda sexy, actually." Kevin stopped and stared at me. "And you complain about Catgirls??"

15 - I hate Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Even when they are Hot Doughnuts Now! We used to sell Krispy Kreme doughnuts for band fundraisers. I also hate Dr. Pepper. Everyone who was in the band drank Dr. Pepper. If you didn't drink Dr. Pepper, you were an outcast in the band. An outcast from the group of outcasts. I drank Dr. Pepper for three years in high school even though I always hated it.

16 - I keep wondering if it's wrong that I don't particularly like my cats. I've always liked cats, I've always had at least one cat... but these cats, I just don't care for. I miss Sandi and Bear. I don't want to take them to the SPCA or anything because that would be rude. But I keep thinking about how long cats live and wondering if I can wait that long to have a pet that I like again...

17 - The next person who says "Where have you been?" to me is going to get their head ripped off and their heart pulled up out of the steaming remains of their neck. No, I don't have time to be on IRC all the time. No, I don't have time to be on Warcraft all the time. When I'm around, I'm around and when I'm not, I'm not. I'm not dead (yet) or sick (usually). I'm just doing something else right now and I'm getting very, very, VERY tired of people acting like they have some sort of exclusive monopoly on my free time. Which I seem to have so very little of in the FIRST place.

18 - Ok, that was very, very hostile. Maybe I have some issues I need to work out. It's probably that it's Christmas, which seems to always bring out a lot of my repressed hostility, because, after all, large gatherings of family you're not entirely comfortable with is the perfect time to be hostile. Ug. Do you think someone could get me a prescription for Paxil or something? Valium? Just for the holidays?

19 - My father in law called us by mistake a few weeks ago. He was meaning to call Kevin's brother and his wife instead. I didn't tell Kevin that's what happened, just that Fred called. We chatted for about 15 minutes. I feel strange knowing that I have a closer relationship with my father in law than my husband does. I also feel strange knowing that Fred didn't mean to call us.

20 - Kevin got MVP award this month for his work on the ISO audit. This wonderful award gives him a $50 gift certificate to take us out to dinner, 2 movie tickets and $10 worth of popcorn/drinks. He's in a better mood. I'm not.

Kevin didn't get the promotion.

Again.

Somehow, I don't know... it just... I don't understand it, and I don't like it. Not to mention I'm not happy about having to live with Kevin and his mood.

In the meanwhile, my father's sister died and I'm in that strange place of not really caring, but feeling guilty, because I feel vaguely like I should.

But I don't.

I barely know the woman. I haven't seen her in over nine years, since my dad got married and that was only for about ten minutes. Before that, I hadn't seen her since... oh, I don't know, when I was sixteen maybe. And I never saw her much, maybe two or three days a year, when I was growing up.

And I just... don't care. I mean, I'm sorry my dad is upset, but... I dunno.

And I feel guilty for not caring.

Kevin is talking about the upcoming Dendrite anual re-org (no, it's not official, they just do it every year anyway...) and we are watching Jess spin around in circles until she gets dizzy and falls down.

"I vaguely remember when I used to find that entertaining," I said.

"What?"

"Running around in circles until I got dizzy and fell down."

Kevin looks at me, somewhat disgusted.

"What?" says I.

"That's what I do for a living!"

I. Am. Leaving. Now.

Kevin and I are staying in a hotel for a couple days (JD, please don't forget to feed the cats, because they will be VERY angry if they don't get fed and they will pee on my sofa and then I will be VERY angry with you :D) and Jess is staying at my parents for a couple of days.

Baby. Free. Time.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to this.

I had an epiphany last night.

For the last three years, I've been on a medication called Theopholin. It's helped get my asthma under control to the point that I no longer have to carry in inhaler around. In fact, I'm prohibited from doing so.

"If you feel like you need abuterol, go to the ER," said my doctor.

It's been really nice, over the last three years, feeling normal. I no longer have asthma attacks walking up stairs. Or laughing. Do you have any idea what it's like learning not to laugh at things because you might risk spending twenty minutes gasping and choking and desperately needing oxygen?

Yeah, it sucks.

So... I followed my doctor's advice.

Including something that was pretty hard for me. Theopholin usage severely restricts the amount of caffiene I'm allowed on a daily basis... technically, I wasn't supposed to have any but my doctor said I could have one (1) caffienated soda per day.

When I didn't listen to this, I would start having some mild breathing tightness, headache, dizziness... mostly, I listened. The affects were pretty noticable.

Last week at my doctor's appointment, I came up with pretty much a clean bill of health (well, aside from being fat, and really, my lung doctor doesn't care about that.) He said, "You sound good, you look good. Let's take you off the Theopholin and see how it goes."

Theopholin, after long term usage, tends to have some pretty ugly side affects that aren't quite as ugly as not-breathing, so while it's not great to take the drug for more than five years, for some people, it's just not an option.

I've been off Theopholin for more than a week now and I'm still feeling fine.

Yesterday it occurred to me for the first time... that means I don't have to restrict my caffiene intake anymore.

Yeah. Pass me that coffee. NOW.

Then:

I'm six months pregnant. I'm sitting at the doctor's office, waiting for one of my weekly appointments, reading a Parenting magazine. In the magazine, there's an article about cake projects and there's a few pictures of cakes that look like pocket books and castles and soccer goals.

"Yes, dear." Guys practice that, don't they? Saying "yes dear" with varying emphasis on sincereity...

Now

"I've lost it," I said to Kevin. "Gone completely out of my mind."

"Yes, dear."

Sometimes I forget that my new friends don't know me very well.

That they weren't around when I tried a bunch of different drugs in high school. That they didn't watch me, through college, systematically attempt to destroy my life. That they don't know how close I came to being an alcoholic. That they don't realize I spent time in a mental hospital.

This isn't always a bad thing, but it can, occasionally, cause me massive amounts of confusion.

We were sitting around, bullshitting, on Friday night. It was Rob's birthday and sitting around shooting the shit is as good of a way as any to celebrate someone's birthday. We had cake and teased JD a bit about his lack of beardness and played Fluxx.

During the various bits and pieces of conversation, it came up that Tramp - who, much as I like him, is a dreadful innocent in desperate need of "real life experience" - thinks that Kevin and I are "prudish."

Needless to say, this was one of the stranger things I've ever been called in my life.

On the other hand, I can see where he might think that. Kevin and I are married, with offspring. We have a relatively nice apartment, a relatively comfortable existence (especially from the point of view of a still-living-with-roommates, college student), and we don't "party" much anymore. We're responsible, respectable, normal. Boring.

The phrase "been there, done that" comes to mind.

The first boy who ever wrote me poetry (that didn't sound like bad New Kids on the Block lyrics) died of a drug overdose. I'll bet he felt "spiritually awake." Really. Another friend was arrested for selling cocaine to 5th graders. I'm sure prison is an enlightening experience for him. A third friend never spoke to me again after I told her mother about her drug problem. She went into rehab and as far as I know, she got better. I saved her life. At the cost of our friendship.

My freshman year of college, I came very close to being a drunkard. I would get a 750 of rum every week from an of-age friend. I drank a shot in the morning to kill my headache enough that I could go to class. I drank a shot before class, and another one after. I woke up too many mornings wondering where I was, what I'd done, who I was with.

My sexual exploits could be a manual for a porn movie. Except, you know, that I look nothing like a porn star, and neither did any of the guys (and girls) that I went to bed with. I could regale people with the tales of my adventures in the great world arena of intercourse, but frankly, why bother?

To be honest, while all these things may have made me "wild" and "reckless" and "fun", I was never very happy. I spent a lot of time being miserable, upset, worried, and paranoid.

Perhaps I am "prudish" now. I don't really think I am. But I'm certainly a lot different from what I was. And I think that's a good thing. But from an outsider's point of view... I guess I'm just dull.

You know. I think I'll take it as a compliment.

(PS, for those who care, this would be why there was a late-night call to persons who had, unfortunately, gone to sleep. Kevin was so stunned by this revalation that he felt the need to share it with people who might think it as inappropriate as we did.)

Close-ish to the end of a rather intense Hall session (my character currently having gutted a bad guy in a rather neat Jackie-Chan sort of fight) Karen's power went out.

Poof.

She calls me to report. No power.

Karen, after checking to make sure her breakers didn't get tripped - "because it would be stupid to sit here in the dark if that was the problem" - calls the power company, who says "no power until 1:30am." Lizzie logs off to get some sleep.

About five minutes after that, we're still on the phone chatting, when Karen's power came back on. But Liz is already in bed, so we end up continuing to talk on the phone.

Another ten minutes pass and my phone starts making the strange beep-tastic noises that it seems fond of when someone else is trying to call in. I glance at the clock. 11:03pm. Thinking it should only be Kevin - no one else calls me late at night - I switch over.

"Oh my god, oh my god!" a somewhat panicked voice in my ear.

"What's wrong now, JD?" I ask.

"There's a tsunami warning for California! Where's Kevin staying?"

"Um. All right. Well, give me a minute and I'll call him."

I switch back to Karen.

"JD called me to tell me there was an earthquake in California. Tell ya what, I'm going to call Kevin and if it's nothing, I'll call you back in 10-15 minutes, ok? If I don't call you back then something's wrong."

"Right-o. No call in ten minutes, time to panic. Got it."

I hang up, then dial Kevin's number.

BEEP BEEP BEEP!

"The number you have dialed is NOT a working number! Please check your call and dial again."

Blink.

Heart rate spikes somewhat.

Try again.

Ring. Ring. "Yes, dear?"

"Oh, nothing. There was an earthquake in California, so I was a bit worried." Liar. I was a lot worried.

We chat for a while. After some poking around on the internet, I discovered these things:

Calif. Quake Prompts Brief Tsunami Warning

By JOSH DUBOW, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO - A powerful earthquake roiled the waters off the northern California coast, triggering a brief tsunami warning and the evacuation of thousands of residents from a community with a history of battling killer waves.

The 7.0-magnitude quake struck at about 7:50 p.m. Tuesday about 90 miles southwest of the coastal community of Crescent City and 300 miles northwest of San Francisco, according to the
U.S. Geological Survey.

A tsunami warning was briefly in effect from the California-Mexico border north to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, but was called off about an hour after the quake hit. There were no reports of significant damages or injuries.

This has been a test of your local panic system. If this had been a real emergency, you would have been subjected to MUCH MORE panic. Thank you.

So...

We took the Buick in to get it inspected the other day. It passed, no problem - which upsets me a little because we'd been told that the brake rotors needed to be replaced. Not that not having to get those fixed upsets me, just that if this $250 repair was a lie, what's the truth about the rest of the estimate for the AC compressor? Guess we'll check that out in a few months.

In any case, we took the Ford in not long after - you know, the one we haven't driven for six months - and it needs somewhere between $600 and $1,100 worth of repairs to pass inspection.

For. Get. It.

So we decided to go ahead and scrap it. I called the U Wrench It and they'll pay us $110 for it (minus a $40 towing fee, since we can't drive it down there with a rejected inspection sticker on it).

Money saved: $600 - $1,100 worth of repairs. $720 a year in insurance. $35 registration sticker.

For a car that's done nothing more than taken up a parking space for six months.

I don't react well to water leaks.

So I couldn't concentrate yesterday enough to actually write (which is too bad, since I did 1,100 words day before yesterday which is more than all last week combined) because I was panicking and upset.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, although I probably have, I lived in an apartment back in college that flooded nine times. Nine! Mushrooms grew on the floor. There were bugs everywhere. It was awful. Absolutely hellish. My asthma - which I'd had as a child, but gotten over - came back because of all the mold. My health's never quite been the same.

Anyway, I'm still pretty edgy about any sort of plumbing/water problems.

But there wasn't anything I could do about it, so I was just fretting.

Putting my fret to good use, I:

• did 5 loads of laundry


• folded 7 loads of laundry (there were two loads left over from 2 weeks ago that were not folded)


• unloaded the dishwasher


• loaded the dishwasher


• scrubbed all the countertops


• removed the burner pans and scoured them


• swept the kitchen floor


• picked up all of Jess's toys. Twice.


• cleaned the bedroom floor


• cleaned Jess's room


• Took out two bags of trash


• tripped over spare computer parts three times


• suggested nicely that spouse move said spare computer parts somewhere else

::looks around::

::sighs::

Why is my house still a mess?

I've been struggling to find the words...

(Not those words - perhaps oddly, perhaps predictably, my writing has been going very well, I've busted out almost 2,000 words this week, most of which I'm extremely happy with. It's called Escapism...)

My nine-year-old nephew tried to commit suicide two days ago.

I don't know what to say.

(This entry contains adult language, sexual content, and adult situations. Parents should preview information first. The TMI-intimidated should get their passports out and be ready at the station.)

Conversation:

KT: Kevin, dear, sweetheart, DARLING?

Kevin: Yes?

KT: There is a SPIDER IN THE BATHROOM, CANYOUCOMEKILLITPLEASE?

Kevin: Yeah, no problem. Where is it?

KT: In the sink. And um... while you're at it, would you please hand me my vibrator, because you know, if the spider fell on it, I think I'd have to throw it out.

Kevin: There's a *sink* right *here*.

KT: NO SPIDER COOTIES!

(Subtitle: Monster of the week)

One of the best roleplaying books I've ever read was the Storyteller's Guide to Vampire. Not so much because of game information, but because - unlike many other books - this one provided tips on how to GM. It discusses plots and moods and story ideas and to have stock NPCs and locations on hand for when your group decides that they absolutely MUST wander off in some completely new, unexpected direction. (No, I've never had that happen, have I? *sigh*)

One of the sections talks about Vampire games frequently degenerating to a common theme - who do we hate tonight? Vampire and the Jihad is a constant mood of paranoia with people out to get everyone else, lots of fights that you don't always understand how you got involved in, and dead end stories that just go nowhere. (You think. Maybe you missed something.)

In Anime, this sort of thing is called a "Monster of the Week" piece. Zenki, for instance, is a monster of the week show. Each week someone gets corrupted by a demon seed. Chiaki and Zenki have to find out who, Zenki must transform (Vajeru On!), beat up the demon, eat the seed, and get un-transformed. End of episode.

Recently, I've felt sort of like this: every day, I have a new problem. It's almost completely unrelated to the problem I had yesterday and solving it won't keep me from having a new problem tomorrow.

Some examples:

Saturday, I really, really hated my husband. And Rob, just for completeness's sake. For some reason, Kevin decided that Rob needed pelting with stuffed animals. I have no idea if Rob actually did anything to inspire said pelting... and, of course, neither of them could be bothered to PICK UP the fracking stuffed animals that got thrown at Rob. He wouldn't throw them back at Kevin, either. So, rather than being mostly near the toybox, they were piled in an untidy heap near the sofa.

Which Jess found to be exceptionally entertaining the next day... I mean, seriously, I know she usually drags her toys all over the place, and that it's an awful lot of work to clean them back up. I try to do so every day while she's taking a nap, but sometimes I'm tired. And Kevin almost mever does anything more than kick a toy out of the way if it's bothering him. Most of the time he can't even be bothered to do that much. And she has way too many fracking toys. It takes me upwards of half an hour EVERY DAY to put her toys away.

And she's mising lots of them. 3 out of 5 balls for her fun fair are missing. I have 16 of 20 stacking blocks. We can still find 6 of 9 shapes for the shape-sorter (and the front of the box is missing entirely). We have 5 of 7 tiny people - altho I keep finding Mrs. Claus underneath the seat-cushion of the glider. I don't even know how many books are missing... she used to have 4 Spot books and 12 tiny alphabet books. I couldn't tell you how many are left.

Yesterday: I am stupid, you know that? I can't keep track of the 15 million account names and passwords I have. I have bugged Matt about four hundred times for my login and password to the Hall's website. If I write it down, I lose it. If I save it in my saved passwords list, my harddrive crashes. If I don't log into the Hall Wikipedia for two weeks, it logs me out and doesn't save my password.

Karen - bless her heart - seems to have entire volumes of the Hall's history memorized. She's sort of Tolkien-ish that way... loads and loads of background information and she checks and cross-checks everything. She's got an amazing memory for Hall trivia.

I, however, am more Stephen Kingish. I'm making this shit up as I go. It makes it hard for me, sometimes, when I'm running a plot, because I don't always check my facts before I make something fit into my story... and sometimes it means that what I said directly contradicts something else I said.

So, last night in a Hall session: I have always intended for there to be some sort of psionic's guild... and it can't be sponsored directly by the school because Tyl knows too much about the shadier dealings of Marsember to risk being examined closely by the city's authority. So, someone else.

At one time, I actually wrote up a fracking school roster. I have no idea why I did this. So, Karen's character's asking for information about the psionic's guild. And, because of the afore-mentioned password problems, I didn't have access to my roster. So... thought process: shit shit... I can't just make up a name because Cat will want to know why she doesn't know this person. Fuck. Cat's been out of school for three years now, could it be someone new? No, they wouldn't have been in school long enough... well, maybe they knew a lot when they came to the school. Sure, that's a good idea... I mean, some people just learn how to do their psionics... a new person. Name... name... make up a name... ah, that's good. ::watch the screen for a moment:: Oh Bloody Fuck. Why didn't I see that coming... now it's all the big bad stranger's fault, because obviously someone who just came into the story now has to have some ulterior motivation. They couldn't just think making a guild was a good idea.... now she's all into the idea that some psionic bad guy is controlling everything and is going to TAKE OVER THE WHOLE CITY, MUA HA HA.

So Karen's all pointed in the wrong direction for my plot because I can't be bothered to remember my own FUCKING PASSWORD.

Still mad: Neopets.

Ok, I know this is stupid. It really, really is. I have this pet, you see - a neopet. And I've been playing this game for three+ years now... in that time I have accumulated close to seven million neopoints (the currency in that game).

I had all my pets painted the way I liked and was pretty much resting on my laurels.

Just before Christmas, my pet got zapped by Boochie the Bruce who turned my pirate aisha into an ugly, whiny little baby aisha. YUCK. I immediately checked the prices for a pirate paintbrush to paint her back. 1 million neopoints, plus.

Ack. So I ended up painting her Christmas colored, as a temporary measure - I take perverse pleasure in hoarding my neopoints, so the idea of spending that much sort of bothered me.

I was mostly happy with her being Christmas...

And then a few days ago she went from being delighted! and bloated to DEPRESSED . Which turned her into a BLUE aisha. ARGH. And super argh. I mean, give me a fracking break already...

.....

so... who am I going to hate today?

A friend of mine - and I use the term loosely - recently gave me the title of Asshole of the Year. In context of the situation at hand in which he used the endearment, I feel I have been entirely successful in providing him with exactly what he did not want, but that I told him in advance that he was getting.

To wit: My friend is having an affair with a married woman.

When said friend came to me with this information and asked for my advice, I was blunt and honest.

"You don't want my advice," I said. "You won't like it, you won't listen to it, and you won't be happy when I continue to be unsympathetic to your problems. Before we go into any further details, you've been warned. Proceed at your own risk."

He, of course, and as I knew he would, proceeded to ignore my recommendation that he take his sob-story elsewhere and dumped the load of hogwash on me. I have been unremorsefully cruel, one might say, in my opinions.

Some of my priceless excerpts:

"She's lying to you. You think she'd be honest with you if she's lying to her husband? Think that much of yourself, do you?"

"Why should she leave him? He pays the bills and she sacks out with you on the side. Seems ideal to me."

"You love her. So what? How does that change anything?"

"You got yourself into this mess with your eyes open. This is your own fault. "

Despite this, he keeps coming back to me and yesterday he finally said "You're a real bitch, aren't you?"

Why yes, actually. I am. And you know, I say this from the point of view of someone who used to habitually cheat on boyfriends. Believe me, in this particular instance, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Like the scorpion to the maiden: you knew I was poison when you picked me up.

Hell, I was married to one guy, dating another, and sleeping with a third. Who the fuck were any of them kidding that I wouldn't turn around and sleep around on them? I mean, come on. It doesn't excuse my behavior in the slightest, but where, exactly, were they storing their brains?

Do not think, for one second, that someone who is cheating on a spouse or boyfriend with you, will tell you the truth. They might - by accident. Or once in a while. But sooner or later, they'll lie about something. Even if it's just to "protect your feelings." Do you really believe that "Oh, well, we haven't had sex in a long, long time" is real? Hell no. In fact, I frequently had more sex with my "official" boyfriend than I would have normally. To keep him from getting suspicious.

I mean, honestly, if you're shacking up with someone who has an "official" boyfriend/spouse, you need to accept right now this second before you go any further at all that what you have is being shared around. If that's something you can't deal with - what the hell are you doing messing around with a committed woman ANYWAY? Jesus Christ, you fucking masochist. No, you get no sympathy from me for being jealous of her HUSBAND. Nope.

Don't think that you'll "get her in the end" if you wait long enough. And even if you do, what then? You think you'll ever, ever be able to trust her, 100%. I mean, she slept around when she was married to him, what makes you so sure that she won't do it to you? Yes, yes, I know. Some people can change and some people actually do. I should know, I'm one of them who finally got out of the cycle. But I did it by getting OUT of the cycle. I was single when Kevin and I started seeing each other. I didn't sneak around to see him. I'm not saying it never happens. I am, however, saying that it's rare, and you should be prepared for the fact that it won't work out for you.

I am also saying that - should things actually work out - you need to be prepared for the fact that the reputation will take a long, long LONG time to go away. Know that your friends will report anything she does to you that's suspicious. Know that people will talk, if she has a guy friend she spends time with. Know that people will wonder and whisper and that sometimes it gets easier to just go ahead and cheat. I mean, if you're going to get accused of it all the time anyway, may as well get the benefits package, right? Trust me on this: Kevin and I have been together now for nine years and it took a long time for rumors and jokes to stop being made. Once you get that reputation, you're fucking stuck with it.

"But I love her." So what? So fucking what? Love is something you can't help, perhaps - and I'm not entirely convinced of that, either - but what you do about love is YOUR CHOICE. You chose to continue to allow this attachment, despite knowing that she was married. You chose to see her. You chose to allow her to insinuate herself into your life. YOU PICKED THIS. Perhaps you can't help how you feel, but you can help what it's doing to your life. Stop seeing her. And I don't mean just stop sleeping with her. I mean don't talk on the phone, don't send emails, don't get together for lunch "as friends."

"But I'm happy when we're together." No you're not. You're breathless with lust, you're consumed with emotion, and you're busily not thinking about the fact that in ten minutes, she's going to get up, go to the bathroom, and go home to her HUSBAND. That's not happiness. And you're fucking miserable all the rest of the time.

Not to mention the fact that you're wasting my time reiterating the obvious. All that does is make me think you're an idiot.

I have no sympathy. You knew what the situation was when you started. You know what I think now. You continue to pursue the situation and you continue to be miserable. Good job. Really.

Yes, I'm a bitch. I know.

But you knew that already.

Sometimes, there's a lot to say, but not a lot of it, you know?

I mean, once you've said "My father has kidney stones," there really isn't much more people want to hear. They want to get right into the "oh, I hope he gets better soon" or the "You know, I had kidney stones once and ..."

So, the clutter of my life over the last few weeks:

• My father has kidney stones. So we haven't seen him.
• The car is back to making that gurgling unpleasant noise. We haven't had time/money to take it into the shop, but are planning to do so this week.
• I am recovered from the Mongolian Death Virus. No, I don't feel well, no I haven't slept much, and I know I sound terrible. Yes, yes. Get lots of rest (are you volunteering to come babysit?) and drink lots of fluids (ditto on going to the store for me?)
• Because of the car and the MDV, I have not been able to go up and see the new addition to the universe. (You're welcome, Kris.) I'll see her soon.
• Another friend of mine had a baby recently and as she's part of a lesbian couple, I'm refraining myself from asking all those rude, annoying, nosy questions like "um... donor sperm?" because well, it's rude. But gods, I'd really like to know.
• After complaining yesterday that Jess had stopped using words except for "Mama, Dada, Boo and Baby" she decided to learn a new word. One of Jess's favorite things to play with is a hairbrush - and not her own, either, but one of the adult hairbrushes. She'll come in to the kitchen with me and then immediately depart for the bathroom and come back holding a brush. So, yesterday evening, I told her "Yes, that's a brush." At which point she ran around the house screaming "Bush bush bush!" and sounding like we had the world's smallest Republican on our hands. I'm so ashamed.
• Yesterday I also taught Jess to jump. This may have been a mistake on my part.
• Jess's clothing box is empty. This would be the box I kept all outfits too large for her until she needed them. It is now empty. Figuratively, of course, because this is Jess and it's a box.
• I'm thinking about making a gnome in World of Warcraft. Despite everything, I think the female gnomes and I have a lot in common. Female Gnome flirt: "Your ability to use complete sentences is definately a plus." Female Gnome silly: "I heartily apologize for all destruction caused by my homicidal rampage." Yep. I should make a gnome.
• I recieved and devoured the new book by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee. It was wonderful. As usual. WRITE FASTER!

She weren't much to look at, she weren't much to ride
She was missing a window on her passenger side
The floorboard was patch up with paper and tar
But I really was something in my old yellow car

Take a look at me now, throwing money around
I'm paying somebody to drive me downtown
Got a Mercedes Benz with a TV and bar
But god, I wish I was driving my old yellow car.

--My Old Yellow Car, Lacy J Dalton

Well, aside from the rich now part, that was me. You see, I had this car. This Car, even.

A 1985 Buick LeSabre limited. The Land Yacht, my dad called it. My friends and I all called it Le Behemoth. My insurance agent called me one time on the phone to ask me about an alleged hit-and-run that I might have been involved in. "Where were you on December 17th?" After I told him, "Williamsburg. I almost never leave," he said "Yeah, I was dubious when they described the car as being 'a Ford Taurus.' No one's gonna mistake that car for a Ford Taurus. Two Ford Taurus's, maybe."

This car was huge - seriously huge. At one point I think we shoved eleven college students into that car to drive to a party where James Doohan was going to be. Of course, we were eleven college students who were all fairly fond of each other, but still, a fairly impressive feat. On more normal days, the car held five - or six, or seven - people headed down to the Newport News anime club on Sunday afternoons.

Le Behemoth got crappy gas milage - about 12 miles to the gallon. And this was back when gas cost about 97 cents a gallon. It leaked coolant to the point that I never actually bought the stuff. I just filled the reservoir with water. Not like it usually got cold enough in Virginia to be a problem. (I went through four water pumps. I wonder why.) There was a wandering electrical problem - sometimes the side mirrors wouldn't work, sometimes the windows, sometimes the auto-door-locks. Before I got the car, it was my mother's. She rolled the odometer over once. I rolled it over twice more. Three hundred thousand miles. That's enough to drive from New York to California - round trip - fifty times. Or around the planet a little more than 12 times.

The second time I ever drove that car after I got my license, I ran it into a tree. (Admittedly, I was attempting to park in my parent's driveway and was driving at a whopping three miles an hour so I didn't do any damage to the car. The tree on the other hand, wasn't really happy about it. By the way, I never, ever turned into the driveway from that direction again. I always drove around the block so I could park to the left. I still prefer to turn left to park.)

Gods, I loved that car. Mechanical problems and all. I defended it, constantly. I'm sure Matt remembers one winter night, with freezing rain, when the defroster wasn't working, and he had to get out and scrape the windshield off every half mile or so from campus to home. "It just needs to warm up a little," I said.

The car loved me. I backed into a parkinglot pylon once in CW. Dave and Linda were behind me, waiting to steal my parking space, so I have witnesses for this. I got out of the car and looked at the V-shaped ding in my bumper. "Fucking great," I said. Le Behemoth shuddered suddenly and there was a distinct "thunk" and the dent popped itself back out. (I note that Dave always gave the car a very wide berth after that. Of course, he was a little paranoid and weird anyway.)

I drove that car from 1989 to 1999. I cried when we sold it to Greg. (Of course, Greg had a bad habit at the time of turning cars into scrap metal. Shortly after he got the car, he had two or three unexplained seizures and lost his license for a year, so he sold le Behemoth to someone else before he had a chance to drive it into a cement truck or something.)

For Christmas, my dad gave us his old buick - a 1995 Buick Lesabre. I have been dubious. The "new" buick is more streamlined than the old one. Le Behemoth looked like a block on wheels.

A few days ago, the "new" car developed an unpleasant burbling noise in the engine. Yesterday, driving up to Williamsburg, the noise got worse and started being accompanied by a shuddering. When I left Liz's house to go pick up the baby (my mother-in-law was watching Jess while I attended a "sell me something expensive" party that my friends have gotten into the habit of throwing.) I had a long, stern talk with the car. "This is not how buicks are supposed to act," I shook my finger at the steering wheel.

I got out of the car at my MiL's house, shut the door and looked at the car. "You are seriously not living up to my expectations. You think about that for a while."

When I got back out to the car, loaded the baby in, and started the engine. Shudder, shudder, BANG. And after that, the engine made not one peep, shudder, or burble the entire ride home.

Kevin reports that it didn't make any noise this morning either on his way to work.

Good car.

Maybe it will be worthy, after all.

That's an estimate of how many seconds I've been married. The more mathmatically inclined will work that out to be seven years (with two leap years included.)

Despite the fact that I did indeed catch the creeping crud that was going around the house, I got the mildest case of it and was feeling mostly - head was and still is, stuffed up - better. So we went ahead and went out, although since we'd left it til the last minute to decide if/when we were going out, we had to take Jess with us, since it's not polite to try and find a last minute babysitter unless it's an emergency. Which made it a little less than totally romantic - although, in all honestly, there's nothing remotely romantic about two people with the sniffles, either. And Kevin's not much into romance anyway. Most of the time.

On the car ride home - and this was truly serendipidous - we heard "our song," which is Head over Feet by Alanis Morrisette:

I had no choice but to hear you
You stated your case time and again
I thought about it

(repeat chorus)

After the song was over and we were listening to the radio spiel - Jess fast asleep in the back seat - he took my hand and said

"You know, I think the time I've loved you most and known what a great person you are is when you were in your car accident. Remember, in the hospital, when the police officer came in to take your statement?" I nodded. I remembered.

The other people in the accident - four in all - were blaming me for the accident and were exceptionally hostile. To the point where the cop told me not to talk to them or try and see them because the one man was making threats against me. The cop, after having talked to them, came to talk to me and he was really in a cross mood, having been yelled at by the other group and sworn at. I didn't know anything about what had happened in the hallway - there's something about having one's leg broken in five places that makes one a little less than aware of things going on around one.

"You said, 'Can I ask a question?'" Kevin said. "'Was anyone else hurt?' That you cared so much more about other people than yourself, laying on a hospital bed facing the possibility that you might not walk again... you wanted to make sure everyone else was okay."

Happy anniversary, Kevin. I love you.

We went out to dinner last night with the Brookses and each baby got a balloon (after some rather impressive squabbling).

Jess's was "red". Or maybe "pink."

"It's maroon," I said.

"It's not on an island." Kevin said firmly.

"No, not a marooned balloon. A MAROON Ballon."

"Well," said Matt. "It could be a Marooned Maroon Balloon."

I shrugged and nodded.

"In fact," he continued. "If it had a coconut candy in it, it could be a Macarooned Marooned Maroon Balloon."

"In the summer," I agreed. "A Macarooned Marooned Maroon Balloon in June."

"Exactly, and if the candy had a Spanish coin, it would be a Dublooned Macaroon Marooned Maroon Balloon in June."

"And if it wasn't on this planet, it would be a Dublooned Macaroon Marooned Maroon Balloon in June on the Moon."

Liz, meanwhile, is laughing so hard she's turning the same shade as said balloon. Kevin put his face in his hands and said, very clearly... "I'm going back to work."

(Note: because I'm the sort of person I am, I kept going mentally for a while... and eventually I came up with the following:

Soon, the Dublooned Macaroon Marooned Maroon Runed Balloon who Crooned a Tune in June at Noon on the Moon is owed a Boon by the Racoon with a Bassoon - who was a bit of a Loon - and lived on a Dune near the Lagoon and gave him a Spoon Hewn from a Prune. )

Two small excepts from my day as proof that, unfortunately, my mother and I are related.

My mother, who came down to visit today, wanted to treat me and Jess to lunch. That's fine, I'm happy with that.

She spends all the time she's visiting complaining about money - in that she doesn't have any, the rent didn't get paid until December 14th, etc etc.

I picked up the tab for lunch, telling my mother that we were flush at present (true) and she should save her money (also true.)

My mother, as a thank you for buying her lunch, promptly bought my daughter another stuffed animal for Christmas.

::this is me, chasing my eyes around under my desk because they got away::

I packed up some Christmas gifts today to mail to my friends who live waaaaaaaaaay out of state and are not coming to visit me any time soon.

I was jotting down their addresses on a piece of paper when it occurred to me that one of them had moved recently and I wasn't sure I'd updated my contact page.

I called him. I hadn't updated my contact page.

I got the new address, tore the piece of paper out of the notebook, folded it up....

and left it on my desk.

So I had to call him back from the UPS store to get his address again

Ug.

On an unrelated note, I did see someone who was even more stupid... while we were at the UPS store, some lady came in to mail a very large picture. Framed. With glass. Packed in a soft, squishy packing. She was exceedingly hostile when the UPS people suggested that this wasn't a safe way to ship a piece of glass.

"Well, I have a piece of cardboard in there." She said. Loudly. As if this somehow made her package more break-resistant.

"Ma'am, they stack the boxes one on top of the other."

"Well, if you don't want to ship it, I'll just take it somewhere else," she huffed.

"I'm not saying that, ma'am, I'm just saying it's not likely to arrive in good condition."

"You don't have to harrass me about it. I am NOT worried about it breaking."

ooooooooookay....

Personally (the actual conversation was much longer, much louder, and much more idiotic, but I'm summarizing) I'd have jumped up and down on the bloody thing if I was a UPS employee as soon as she left the store.

Y'all can just skip this, if you're afeard of too much TMI. (Too much Too Much Information. In the dictionary, under recursive: see recursive). Anyhoo....

I've never really been much of a girlie-girl. Even when I was, I wasn't. If that makes any sense. In high school, I wore make-up for a while, but I never actually bought any. I used my mom's makeup that she didn't want any longer. (Which, if you've ever seen my mother, was a bad idea, as we look almost nothing alike. She's got a perpetual tan and I've always been almost Vitamen D deficiently deprived of sunlight. She's blonde, I'm dark-haired. She has nice high Indian cheekbones and the nicest thing you can say about my facial structure is that I did, finally grow into my nose. Which is good, because when I was thirteen, you could see me coming from half a block away because of the nose. Then again, it may have only been eclipsed by my chest, which grew out to a DD in the same time span.)

I was never much of a shoe-person, either. Even when I could wear heels, I tended not to and I wouldn't know what a "kitten heel" was if you threw it at me. Before I started dating my husband, my collection of shoes consisted of one or two pairs of ratty k-mart canvas shoes and one or two pairs of "dress" shoes that would have as absolutely little heel on it as I could find for less than $12.

I haven't painted my fingernails much voluntarily since high school, either. (Karen, if you're still reading, you probably want to skip ahead a paragraph or two. This is gross and will probably upset you.) I used to paint my nails a lot. And painted them some exceptionally nasty colors, like bright orange with blue dots on one hand and blue with orange dots on the other. Anyway, on the particular day in question, I had painted my nails rainbow: thumb black, then red, orange, yellow, blue, etc, etc.

My mother's allergic to bees and she keeps an epi-pen in the house. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's a self-injecting shot-kit that carries a dose of epinephrin for people with severe allergies. Actually, I ought to have one, but as I haven't actually had an accidental injestion exposure to pineapple in... years... I never bothered. In any case, I came home from school - my mother was gone again, who knows where - and the cats had knocked her epi-pen off the table and were batting it around on the floor. I did not think this would be a good plan, so I reached over and picked it up, meaning to put it back on the table. The thing injected itself through my thumb. And I do mean through. In the pad, out through the nail. Personally, I think I ought to be granted a Purple Heart for this, as I pulled the damn thing out of my own thumb. Actually, it didn't really hurt although it looked bad enough. What did hurt was going to the ER and having them have to pour an awful lot of acetone on my thumb because that was the one painted black so they could look and see how much damage I'd done. My thumbnail ended up falling off as a result (and god, that was painful... not the falling off itself, but all the endless amounts of bumps and nicks and stuff while I was waiting for it to grow back in. You don't really realize what your fingernails do for you until you don't have one anymore.) and I didn't paint my fingernails again for like... eight years, maybe?

[Ok, Karen, you can look again....]

I'm not much of a hair-person. My idea of a hair-style is something that I can either totally ignore or I can pull up into a pony-tail. I don't use hair-goo or blow-dryers. I wouldn't know what to do with a curling iron if my life depended on it (so it's good that it never has). My hair's pretty bleh looking most of the time - it's dark brown and extremely, overly coarse. It rarely stays where I put it and has a tendancy towards bushiness.

I'm also not much of a clothes person - or a shopping person in general. I don't shop for the joy of hanging out in the mall and I'm never fashionable. (Of course, I'm pretty heavy, too, so even if I wanted to look fashionable, it's difficult. )

Which brings me to this whole dress-party shindig we're going to on Saturday. I feel completely ridiculous. I've spent well over $150 now on a dress, shawl, jewelry and undergarments for a party that we'll spend about 2 hours milling around uncertainly before going home, since Kevin's got to work the next day at 4am. And I still need to schedule a hair appointment to get an up-do.

On the plus side, while shopping, I indulged just a little and bought myself two new bras and five pairs of underwear that all match. There's something very girlie about matching underwear. Especially that isn't black, white or that horrid beige color.

[Background Music: The Night Santa Went Crazy, Weird Al Yankovich]

Kevin and I are having a slight disagreement. Nothing unusual in and of itself - we've been arguing for years about whether or not the toilet paper should hang down the back or over the top - but this one doesn't have any immediate solution. (With the toilet paper, it's just who puts the new roll on. Usually me.)

This problem is what to do with Jess about "Santa Claus"....

Background: I "found out" about Santa Claus pretty late. I think I was about seven or eight. At the time, my mother and I were having some pretty severe arguments about lying. I'd become a right little fibber - and for the sake of brevity I won't get into my speculations about why that was happening - and was constantly getting into trouble for telling tall tales. (I will add that my lying tended to be about things I'd seen or done that I hadn't, rather than "no, I didn't do that" because I didn't have a dog or younger sibbling to blame it on. Perhaps it was merely the first sign of the budding writer.)

Now, a lot of the "clues" were missing in my life. "Santa" presents didn't come wrapped. I always got a stocking full of toys/books/food outside my door that I could get up and grab (thus ensuring that I had something to do for a few hours and woke my parents at something more reasonable like 7 or 8. I might add that the year I got the Dragonlance trilogy in my stocking, my parents came in around 10am to ask if I wanted to eat breakfast....) And I got three unwrapped presents from Santa. My mother's theory being that Jesus only got three presents from the wise men, so that's what Santa did. Which means Santa didn't use our wrapping paper or have my mother's handwriting.

Anyway, I was pretty shattered when I found out about Santa. No Santa, no Easterbunny, no Tooth Faerie, no God, no Jesus. Yes, I did lump them all together in one big fat adult conspiracy that meant they could lie to us and we weren't allowed to lie in return. I mean, after all, what is God but a Santa Claus for adults? Be good or Santa won't bring you any presents: Be good or you'll go to hell when you die.

In any case, I resented it for a long, long time. I'd say I still do, given that it burns me up even now. And my mother rather insisted that I continue to "play along" on the threat that "not believing in Santa" meant I got socks and underwear for Christmas. "You're going to go to hell when you die."

In any case, it really wasn't an issue for a long, long time. For years I was pretty much "nope, never having children." Now, obviously, we have a baby and eventually - probably not this year either - she's going to have to be told something, one way or the other.

Kevin wants to go ahead and perpetuate the Santa Claus myth. Partially because he thinks it's cute and partially because he doesn't want Jess to "be the kid who ruins it for everyone else."

And I... do not know.

Last night, writing a check for some groceries, I asked "What's today?" (Being a SAHM, I often forget what the date is.)

"November 23," said the cashier.

"Ah yes," I said, completing the check. "Karen's birthday. And the day after the anniversary of Blackbeard's death."

Kevin nudged me in the back with his elbow. "Don't bore the poor guy with your useless trivia."

"Died in 1718 after being killed by the boarding party of the HMS Pearl," the clerk winked at me. "Of the coast of Ocracoke, North Carolina. He was decapitated."

Somewhat surprised, I continued, "After being stabbed and shot over 25 times."

"Maynard mounted his severed head on the bow of the Pearl."

"And his body was rumored to have swam around the Pearl three times before at last sinking beneath the waves."

Kevin, glancing back and forth between the two of us, shook his head. "Great. Two fonts of entirely useless knowledge."

Heard around the Hicks Household:

Me: Would you think badly of me if I took that package of cookie dough and just ate it raw, while we watch the movie?

Him: Only if you don't share.

Click below if you want to hear about my Very Bad Week:

The god of movies in the theater... loathes me.

I've just had the worst luck with these sorts of things. For instance, remember last year when I went to see Return of the King in the theater and T dumped a glass of icewater on me?

Or how about when I tried to see it again and the projector crapped out near the end?

How about Scott's four-year-old kicking me in the arm all during Spider Man 2?

Or the fact that the dinner theater allows smoking in the theater during shows after 9pm and I was stuck in a room full of cigarette smoke when I went to see Chronicles of Riddick?

Or today, when I went to see Spider Man 2 again and ended up being at the showing that was hosting a birthday party, so there were about 4 dozen kids running around and eating pizza and throwing popcorn?

I am seriously thinking of giving up movie theaters.

I am sick. Kevin is sick. Jess is sick. Except sick really isn't... well, I dunno. It's hard to say, really. I don't think we have anything that a doctor can do anything about, but it's sort of annoying anyway.

We're all running mild fevers, and at least Kevin and I (who have adequate conversational skills) are having all the side effects that go with fever; thirsty, dry-eyed, achy. All three of us are irritable. I have a sore throat and pain in my ears. Kevin has a bad headache. Jess is... well, Jess is being a demon weasel and it's really not doing the rest of us any good whatsoever.

It's not really a cold - or at least taking cold medicine doesn't help any. But it's not really severe enough to not function. I just don't really want to function.

My female problems finally went away. After. Two. Weeks.

The dishwasher broke today. I found this out when I went in to the kitchen to cook dinner and found that the floor in the kitchen was two inches deep in water.

Jess is walking really well. However, she's not got a good grasp on stepping over or around obstacles. So she still falls down a lot. And she's in a bad mood anyway....

I know, I know, I know. Jess has a very good company face. However, she is not always an angel, she is sometimes a complete and total DEMON WEASEL and I'm getting very, very fucking tired of my father acting like she can not possibly ever be a DEMON WEASEL. I swear, the next time he says "Oh, not that sweet thing..." when I complain about her demon weaseliness, I am going to... I don't know. Something nasty. Make him babysit or something.

Last week, Kevin and I took Jess over to the Lynnhaven mall for the SAHM's group (that's Stay At Home Moms, for the acronymically challenged) and met up with a few other moms. (Kevin, of course, was the only dad)

Anyway, Lynnhaven mall has a really nice toddler play-area. The floor is padded thick before the carpet was laid out and there are lots of foam sculptures for the kids to run and jump and play on - slides and tunnels and critters, all done out in a sea theme.

Anyway, last night, having been couped up in the house with a somewhat bored and cranky baby, I suggested we go over to the mall, have some fast-food and let Jess run around in the play-area for a while. (Note to self: Might want to decide this just a little bit earlier next time, as we didn't get home until almost 9:15, which is about an hour past Jess's bed time)

Jess was a big hit with all the two to three year old girls. And one sixteen month old boy. They sort of clustered around her and tried to get her to toddle towards them or hold her hand or pat her hair. It was very cute, although I had to pretty much stand on top of them, because every once in a while, one would try and pick her up, and while that's cute, I don't think a 25 pound pre-school girl has the necessary strength to pick up a 20 pound toddler and not drop her immediately on her head.

At one point, one little girl discovered if she beat on one of the painted columns that ran through the middle of the room, that it was hollow and made a rattling boom sound. The other kids thought this was absolutely fascinating and gathered around to repeat the experiment. After a few minutes, there was a fairly steady, although syncopated, rhythmic chant going along with it. Jess decided this was some groovy dancing music and stood near the beaters, twisting her hips along with the beat.

After Jess had worn herself down some, we headed over to the food court to grab something to eat - McDonald's for Jess and Philly Steak for us. I waited for the McD's. There were four employees there - one cashier, one front girl, one cook and a manager.

The cook I only saw for a minute, a teenaged boy with his hair shaved along the bottom of his scalp and the rest of his hair caught up in a pony-tail. The front girl and the cashier were each about sixteen or so. When I got in line, there were few other customers. One was a big teenaged boy, relatively attractive if you like the type, and the two McD's employees seemed to like that type.

While my joints occassionally ache and I can't stay up on no sleep the way I used to, I would never, ever go back to being a teenager. Primitive mating rituals... god preserve us. The cashier was attempting to sell him a "hand" - basically a post-it note that he could write his name on as a donation to charity. He would demure, then go back to the table and talk to his friends while the two girls behind the counter would whisper and giggle frantically. He'd come back, they'd push and shove each other until he got back up to the counter and then immediately start their bid again to sell him this "hand."

Finally, he bought one and wrote his name in big loopy letters. The two girls, frantic to read it before the other, accidentally ripped it in half. After some argument about whose fault this was, the two girls decided he could have another one, to fill out again. At this point, the manager, who was all of about two seconds older than the girls, decided to intervene. This was, he said solumnly, for charity, and they would just have to tape it up. Or, he offered, they could buy a second one.

More frantic giggling and pushing. Eventually, the boy - Mark, I saw by his loopy signature - bought a second "hand" but gave it to the cashier. She could, he said, put her name on it. The front-girl at this point, gave up the battle and started taping the old hand together to stick on the wall. She then busied herself with her actual job while the cashier wrote her own name out (Janice) and stuck it on the wall - next to Mark's.

After Mark finally went away (why, yes, I'm still waiting for my cheeseburger and fries) the front girl spent the next two or three minutes sweeping the floor, and not coincidentally, knocking Janice's "hand" off the wall.

Sometimes you just have to sit back and consider all the small things in life.

- my new paper towels have absolutely adorable frogs on them. With a 1 year old baby, I use a LOT of paper-towels. These particular towels make me smile, every single time I see them.

- I only have 1 cold sore on my tongue. This is a big improvement from last week, when I had about 5.

- I have joined a Stay At Home Mom's group and we're having a playgroup meeting next week.

- It is absolutely flawlessly beautiful outside. After Jess gets up from her nap, I think we'll go for a walk.

- Jess is automagically switching herself over to the Daylight Savings time (or, more precisely, the end of Daylight Savings Time). Over the last 7 days or so, she's been going to bed a little later and sleeping a little later. By the time the clocks change this weekend, she'll be going to bed around 8:15 and getting up at 8.

- I wrote two letters today and for the first time didn't have to scribble over something I wrote because of my monsterously bad handwriting.

- I am going to get to go up to Williamsburg on Saturday and Be Social. I'm not sure scrapbooking is going to be anything that I'm really interested in (not to mention the fact that all my actual physical photographs are in the closet behind Kevin's desk and not even remotely accessible for the next 2 years at least) but it was nice to be thought of and included.

Aren't you lucky? I've been gone so long and have so much to talk about that you're going to get a huge entry!

I - Jess's Year Appointment (or Traffic, the first)

We're keeping the same pediatrician for the first two years of Jess's life because it's easier than trying to arrange for a new doctor and get all the records transferred and stuff. Especially since comparing with the Brookses, our doctor is doing a slightly different series of vaccinations, and I wouldn't want to skip one or overlap or anything.

So, her appointment was Friday - in Newport News. We left a little early, to make sure we got there on time. We did. We ended up getting there about an hour before her appointment. Which did not keep the doctor from being almost an hour late in getting to us.

Jess is 19.7 pounds (and here I thought she'd be heavier than that. She certainly feels heavier) and about 29" tall. She's perfectly on her curve of 25% weight and 50% height. She got her chicken pox vaccine and her flu vaccine. She was pretty good for her shots and only got grumpy at the chicken pox one. Guess the flu was only a little sting, since she didn't cry about that one at all.

We left Newport News and headed home around 4:45. At the tunnel, we got caught in dead-stop traffic for almost an hour. I spent most of that time messaging back and forth with Liz and Karen. We got home around 7pm and I was very, very glad I'd had the foresight to cancel the Shadowrun game.

II - For better Or Worse (or Traffic, the second)

Ashby got married on Sunday to a woman that none of us have met. They've been dating for about two years now, but Ashby's such a lousy correspondent that I know almost nothing about her. I think I only found out about the wedding because I called him like 2 months ago for his 6-month "are you dead yet" phone call. I don't actually usually get to talk to him on these phone calls - since getting a message passed on in the Gunter household is like pushing water uphill - but it usually confirms that he's not dead. Wonder of wonders, when I called a few months back, he was actually home.

So, anyway....

He got married up in Annandale, which is about 200+ miles from here. I decided that I really did not want to try and put Jess in fancy clothes (and me in fancy clothes) and drive all the way from Chesapeake to DC in one morning. That would have had us up earlier than Jess normally gets up, skipping her breakfast and lunch and nap to get to a wedding at 2:15. So we made arrangements to stop at my dad's on Saturday night, so we'd only have about an hour and twenty minutes to drive up to the wedding. Which is still far, and had we had enough money, we'd have gotten a hotel in DC.

Denise fretted at us enough about possible traffic that we left even earlier than we planned and got to the chapel almost an hour ahead of time. (Still, we were in the car from 12pm - 1:30) So, of course, by the time the ceremony actually happened, Jess was totally and completely bored with this sitting still thing. But she wasn't so bad that we needed to take her and leave, so I guess that's good enough - she was just voluble at the prayer-reading part. "Blah blah god is wonderful, example of Jesus's marrigage with the church blah blah MAMAMAMAMA BOOK"

The ceremony was quick - about 15 minutes - and I got a few pictures. I'll let you know how they turn out, since I actually used the disposable camera I got several months back to take pictures of Jess with, before Liz gave me her old digital camera.

Then we got back in the car and drove to the reception (about 30 minutes). I talked with a bunch of Ashby's friends from DC that I have met before, including Beth (Boofer) who looked so different that I actually had no clue who she was for about 10 minutes. I met Norf's wife and step-daughter, talked with Ashby's sister for a while, and finally got to see Ashby and his wife for exactly seven minutes.

After that, we really had to go. The wedding party had stayed so long at the chapel for pictures, that by the time they showed up, it was nearly 4:30. We got back in the car and headed back to my parents to pick up our stuff and change clothes.

Just outside DC we hit gridlock. It took almost an hour to get 8 miles. By the time we got to dad and Dee's, it was full dark and Jess was being a major weasel baby - although I'm not sure Greg helped the situation much by mocking her in the back seat (did I mention we took Greg along? yeah, anyway...) This, of course, put Kevin in extremely foul mood by the time we got there. Joy and rapture.

We got our stuff together, I stuffed some food in the baby, and we left again. Jess settled down again after about ten minutes or so, which was really, really good. We grabbed some fast-food on our way back to the interstate and headed home.

Just outside of Williamsburg, we hit gridlock again. For the space of one exit (143 to Lee Hall - where we immediately got off the interstate) we were moving at no more than a mile and a half an hour. We drove down 143 until past the mall, where I could see that the traffic had cleared up. We got back on there, then headed down 664 towards Greg's place to drop him off.

Apparently they've done contruction around there, too, since the road near Mt. Vernon avenue suddenly came to a dead-stop and headed off in the opposite direction. Greg had NO idea where the road came out now, and neither did we. Eventually we got back to London Ave, which is where we were headed. We dropped Greg off (he forgot his hat in the back seat, but I think we can get it to him later) and headed home.

We pulled into our parkinglot at just after midnight. If you're keeping count, that's almost 10 hours in the car on Sunday. And two hours on Saturday. If Ashby and Angie get divorced in anything less than 12 years, I will personally beat them to death with a volkswagen newbeetle.

III - The Peanut-Butter Conspiracy

So, finally home and somewhat rested, I started Monday as normal. Get up, feed the baby, putter around on the computer. Messaged a bit with Liz and Karen Kevin came home for lunch because one of his co-workers had given us a present for Jess's birthday and it was large. Kevin didn't want to keep kicking it under his desk all day, so we opened it and set it up for Jess. It's one of those whirly do-hickeys that runs on batteries and has lights and sounds and whirly bits and... yeah, I hate it. Fortunately, Jess seems a lot more interested in the balls that came with it than with the whirly-gig itself.

I got her off the floor and started feeding her lunch. The doctor said we could try her on peanut-butter if we wanted, so I spread a thin little bit on some bread, and gave it to Jess along with a slice of cheese.

Jess decided she didn't really care for the peanut butter and only ate like two bites of the bread before she started dropping the pieces off the side of her high-chair. This is probably a good thing.

Kevin had just left to go back for work when I noticed Jess's chin was a bit red. I leaned forward to look and as I was looking, her lip started swelling. Visibly. Small puffs of skin started popping up around her cheeks and nose. She made a hacking, gagging noise and began scratching furiously at her cheeks and throat.

I called Kevin. "Get back here this SECOND!" I yelled and ran into the back room to grab a pair of shorts and shoes, since I wasn't dressed yet. I tried to call Jess's doctor, but the office was "at lunch" and there wasn't anyone there answering the phone. By the time Kevin got home - no more than a minute and a half after I'd called him - Jess's eyes were swelling and she was drooling copiously from a mouth too swollen to close. And I don't mean the skin around her eyes was swelling, I mean her eyes were swelling - the pupils and iris were slightly sunk in with puffy whites rapidly turning pink. This all happened within minutes - she went from sweet, cheerful, cute baby to this drooling, swollen alien-looking creature. It was terrifying. I can't even begin to tell you.

We got to the hospital and were seen immediately. They gave Jess a dose of benedryl, a small dose of steroids and a shot of epinephrin and within forty minutes, she was back to normal, except her eyes were still really red and her cheek and throat were a bit scratched up from where she had been clawing at herself. She was also really good at the ER, not particularly fussy and once the swelling started to receed, she was back to being her normal, cheerful self.

I dropped Kevin off at work and went home. Jess settled into a nap immediately and I followed soon after. After her nap, Jess was completely back to normal, except for being extremely thirsty, which the ER doctor had said would probably happen. I picked Kevin up from work, dropped off Jess's scripts at the drugstore (That'll be about an hour, ma'am.) and went to Wal-mart to get a few things.

IV - Drugstore Snafu (or Traffic, again)

We came home after our errands and I logged on to Hall. We didn't actually have Hall as everyone was reeling from exhaustion and various stressors. (I'm not the only one who had a bad couple of days, and I might even allow that Jeff's problems outweigh my own). I fed Jess some dinner and Kevin went out to pick up her prescriptions around 7:45.

Hah! Hah, I say!

Kevin got to the Walgreens and they informed him that they didn't actually have any of the script in stock. Why hadn't they called us to let us know? Well, they paged us in the store, but we'd left already. EXCUSE ME! You have my PHONE NUMBER. Argh. So they sent him over to Great Bridge to get the script. Just as he was getting to that area - the bridge lifted. So he was stuck in traffic. For about an hour.

He finally got home around 9:30, shoved the script bag at me and went to bed.

I had a side-hall session with Matt and headed off to bed around 11:30 or so. At 2am, Jess decided she was really, really thirsty again and woke me up howling for her bottle. I gave her one - she slucked it back in about three minutes and stood up to hand it back to me - and I gave her another. She slucked about half of that one and then was sleepy enough to go back to bed.

And now, if it's ok with you - I don't want to see the inside of another car for at least a week.

Ok, there are some things in life that are too weird not to share:

How to Fold a T-shirt

Courtesy of Matt

Last night, Matt sent me the above linkie and, of course, it was with some trepidation that I followed the link and watched the little flash clip.

Karen and Kevin who were both perched over my shoulder waiting impatiently for the next 7th Seamail said "Woah, that was cool. How the fuck did she do that? Play it again!" Like standing in front of a giant stereo, that was...

So I played it a few times. And emailed it to Karen so she could watch it later.

Finally Kevin went into the back room and grabbed a t-shirt so we c