I'm Easy, No, I'm Simple, No, I'm Low Maintenance. Yeah, That's the Ticket!

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Now i'm not one of those assholes who spends the first half of February kvetching about how Valentine's is a made up Hallmark holiday, but i'm not a fancy restaraunt, long-stemmed roses required type either.

I like Valentine's Day. I like the idea of having a day set aside to show those you care about how much you do care about them. Now I do think that somethings take this way too far. I've seen more Pajama Gram commercials in the last two weeks than I can count. While perusing the classifieds last week looking for a hedgie in need of a good home I came across an ad for AKC registered Yorkies for $800. "Perfect for Valentine's Day" it said. Yikes. That's more than Josh spent on me for Christmas!

I told Josh about the ad and asked him if he wasn't glad to be married to me who set a $50 limit and tells him every year that he doesn't have to buy me roses, if he does buy me roses they dont have to be red, long-stemmed or a dozen of them. (I never got the long-stemmed thing. Who has a three foot high vase? I end up cutting most of the stems off.) He of course said he was.

I think a lot of the Valentine's backlash comes from an all or nothing attitude. As if you can't have a nice low-key Valentine's Day. It's crappy all around in that case.

Tomorrow i'll get Josh a card and a cute bag to put his presents in, he'll get me grocery store flowers (totally fine by me) and we'll go out to eat at Cracker Barrel since it's the only place to eat in town that doesn't have an hour wait that night. A lovely, low-maintenance Valentine's day.

How Do You Find a Word That Means Maria?

Thought the Sound of Music Songs were out of my head, huh? Nope.

So whenever I mention my sleep disorder I always get the same question: What does it mean to have hypersomnia/narcolepsy? (Depending on which term I decided to use. Still not sure about that.) My answer always seems to fail. It always gets a litany of "I must have that, i'm so tired." Well, maybe, but probablly not. There's a difference between being tired for real reasons and just being tired because your brain is fucked up.

Having narcolepsy (i'll go with this since it's easier to type) means that I look forward to going home and going to bed.

It means when i'm walking across campus to get something signed I look at the fluffy green grass on the mall and think about how nice it would be to just snuggle up for a nap.

It means I have that same thought standing at my mailbox looking across my front yard.

It means that I feel like my blood is made of lead much of the time.

It means that episode of Seinfeld where George built the sleeping compartment under his desk is my dream.

It means that I just don't feel like doing much of anything.

It means that my options for meds are really limited and chock full of side effects.

It suuuuucks.

It's like being a cat in a human body with human responsibilities. You can't take the five naps a day like you need. You can't curl up on that sunny grass, at least not in your front yard unless you want the neighbors to talk. You have to work unless you can get disability and that's no easy or desirable task. You feel like a zombie shuffling around, except zombies don't really have much to do except seek out brains to eat. They don't have lives to enjoy or things to miss out on because they feel bad. So that world is what having narcolepsy is.

Cross Stitch Hacks: Fractional Stitches on Aida

So I belong to a Counted Cross Stitch group on Yahoo. Mostly I enjoy reading the posts when I have time. However one thing about it makes me go bonkers. Someone will ask the age old question "How do I do fractional stiches on Aida?"

And someone always pipes up with "You could always use evenweave."

Well no shit. Look, we all know about evenweave. But most of us don't have the time and money to switch out the aida that comes in kits to evenweave or a use for all that offensive aida stacking up. So here is how you make a fractional stitch on aida.

You use a sharp pin to punch a hole in the middle.

There. You're welcome. I just saved you six long, boobless hours reading 75 posts about how aida is bad and evenweave is made of puppies and rainbows.

Contracts for Dummies! (That means you Sarah.)

So I can across this quote from Sarah Palin and I just have comment.

"This is what I've been telling Bristol, before she gets married, is, Bristol, there are definitely gonna be tough parts in marriage. You have to look at those tough times and remember that you have essentially a business contract with this person. You've signed an agreement: You're going to be together."

Now I hate to say it, but I do agree with the first part of that sentiment. The second, not so much.

I do believe that marriage is a contract. That's not romantic, but it is basically true. You each agree to terms that are binding.

What Palin doesn't get (aside from the fact that Bristol can't enter into ANY contract until she's 18) is that both parties have to meet the terms of a contract for it to be binding.

Yes, when you get married you stand before God and your parent's whole Christmas card list and agree to love, honor, and forsake all others. But five years down the road when the Mister is fucking the new girl in accounting, that's a breach of contract. Contracts that are breached are null and void.

So remember that Bristol when or if "tough parts" degenerate into Levi beating you and fucking your best freind. Or stealing money from you or verbally abusing you or even if the basis of your marriage, love, (i'm being nice here and not suggesting that the out of wedlock baby would have anything to do with the nuptuials) is long gone.

It has always confused me that so much focus is placed on the "till death do us part" area of the marriage vows, but so little on the parts that make that promise worth keeping. It also makes me very sad that that focus has kept so very many people in marriages that are the complete opposite of what a loving God (the entity that consecrates most marriages) or even a just society (for the non beleivers out there) would want for their people.

Of course it also confuses me that the fucking Governor of Alaska doesn't understand that a contract must be fulfilled on both ends to be valid and that contracts can be breached and ended. And it makes me very sad that she came so very close to the White House.

What really makes me sad though is that i've devoted a post to something this dumb ass bitch said. So yeah. I'm gonna go get drunk now and pretend this didn't happen.

Ugh. Yard work.

No, not that kind. Thankfully (in this case) it's still cold as ass around here so with the exception of my daffodils (who sadly got snowed on last night) everything around our house is still dead or dormant.

This yard work is occurring right outside my office window. Apparently the University has some thing about the place looking nice all the time, even in the winter. I'm not sure what has been growing around here, but whatever it is is being weed wacked and the smell of cut grass and exhaust is now wafting up into my building. It's sickening. At least i'm only here another hour.

Blogger Dropped Me. They Said Posts Like "Uh Oh! Polio!" Don't Connect With Today's Youth.

And that's because thankfully polio today is a footnote of history here in the US.

Monday night I met up with an old freind, PBS for a few drinks, some catching up and American Experience: The Polio Crusade. (What? No it isn't cheating! Look, PBS.org is still my main squeeze. But I can have freinds, right? And it was just drinks. Nothing serious. Besides, I hang out with other educational channels all the time and PBS.org is totally cool with that.)

I considered just calling this post Uh oh! Polio! But as funny as it is when it's on an Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode, it just isn't after watching this program.

People, I didn't stitch during this. Just think about that. Turn it over in your head. How riveting this must have been to warrant my complete attention at a time when i'm working hard to finish a UFO.

I knew a few things about Polio and the efforts to create a vaccine for it, but I did learn a lot from this program. For one thing I didn't know that The March of Dimes was started for the purpose of treating and preventing Polio. I didn't know that the iron lung was a permanent home for only some victims of the disease. I didn't know that many people spent months or years in one until they could relearn to breathe using their neck muscles. I also didn't know that some people were able to regain the use of their paralyzed limbs. Sometimes, not always.

I was of course gobsmacked by the irony that Sabin was fucking convinced that Salk's dead virus vaccine would kill people when his own live virus vaccine would of course end up with a higher chance of someone actually getting the disease. And I was confused why this simple concept was lost on a brilliant scientist such as himself.

But what sticks with me most are the images. The images man. It's been said many times that one reason parents today are so easily freaked out by minor concerns about reactions to vaccines, and to the completely untrue, disproven, paranoid, autism not-a-link-at-all-you-dumb fucks is because they've never seen a kid suffer with these easily preventable diseases and I think there really is something to that. After seeing all these videos of pitiful children in leg braces and iron lungs, disabled for life at such a young age, I wanted to get the cats vaccinated! You know, just in case.

I think if people today really knew how bad Mumps could be, that Whooping Cough can take months to fully recover from, had seen Timmy across the street in leg braces or an iron lung, or even seen a child buried from an easily preventable disease they would appreciate the modern wonder of vaccines and thank God that we have them. They would be pushing their kids to the front of the line for the shots just like they were when the Polio vaccine was finally available. I certainly was that night and I don't even have children.

So in summation: Polio is bad. This episode of American Experience is good. It's playing on my totally wonderful educational boyfreind PBS.org now and is well worth the hour of your time. Even if you have to tell a little white lie to your educational boyfriend about where you were and with who for that period of time. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Right? RIGHT?

Revolutionary Road: What a Miserable Book That Was.

Ok, so i've mentioned being a consumer whore recently, but I haven't confessed to a slightly less shameful charecter trait. I'm also a book whore.

I was that weird girl in school who really liked to read. In middle school I woud read while in line to the cafeteria for lunch like Belle in Beauty and The Beast. Then I read through lunch. (Easy to do when you don't have many freinds.) In high school I finished reading A Separate Peace in one day because I was bored on the bus and hey! Look! A book! Once I get into a book I can finish it in no time. I'm also susceptable to suggestion and if I hear a book is good I end up dying to read it. This usually ends with me ordering the book from Amazon since I haven't been to the library since last summer when someone got stabbed in front of the building at the exact time that I would have been there. (For realz! Someone got stabbed in front of the library at 3:15 in the afternoon. Right between leaving work and going home. So i'm a little gun shy. Or knife shy.)

Anyway...

So around the time that Revolutionary Road came out in theatres there were articles about the book and how people just loved it and how it was so good so like a good little book whore I ordered it from Amazon. (I would like to note that I was careful not to buy the movie tie in version with Leo and Kate on the cover and then to peel off the Now A Major Motion Picture sticker that was on it. That shit annoys me.)

I guess the book was good enough. I was well written and all, but I really didn't like it.

First of all, call me an asshole, but I'm easily annoyed at movies, books, TV shows etc. about the drudgery and ennui and desparation of the suburbs. Like it's the MOST AWFUL THING EVER to live inbetween the city and the country. Maybe i'm a weirdo, but I like my life in the suburbs. I like having a yard and an attic and only being five minutes away from several restaraunts and stores. I like the quiet of my neighborhood, and knowing that if my house catches on fire in the middle of the day someone walking their dog or cutting their grass will be there to call the fire department. And that the fire department will know where i'm at since i'm not in the middle of nowhere. Not to hate on the city or the country. I'm sure they have their charms for those who choose to live there. But I chose to live in the suburbs so can we all just accept that and stop looking at us suburbunites like we're empty losers filled with longing and dark secrets already? And honestly, if Frank and April were so damn miserable in the 'burbs why not move back to the city? Jeez.

Of course, even if they had either stayed in the city to start with or moved back or even (spoiler alert) made it to Paris I don't think things would have turned out differently for them.

And that brings me to the second reason I really didn't like this book. There wasn't a remotely likeable charecter in it. (I'm not counting the kids, they were such minor charecters they don't really count.)

Frank and April are crappy people. Their freinds are crappy people. Their real estate agent and her family are crappy people. They are all so empty, but they don't really do anything to fill this emptiness. They don't really talk to their loved ones. They don't listen to them. They don't try to make their lives meaningful where they are now. They just go about their lives waiting and expecting the outside world to fill them up. They're selfish assholes.

Why are they selfish assholes? We don't really know. And that's probablly where the book disappointed me the most. I wanted to know why. Why did Frank and April get married in the first place? Why did they hate each other so much? Did that develop slowly? Was it a sudden thing that happened? What the hell? Can I get some insight into this please?

Maybe i'm missing something here, but I wasn't really impressed. I'll be listing my copy on Paper Back Swap and hoping to get a better book in return. And maybe next time instead of dropping $10 on a book I may not like i'll brave the library.

Have I Mentioned I'm A Consumer Whore Lately?

I haven't? Well here you go. I totally am. I bought a Snuggie.

Yes I know that the Snuggie is a ripoff of the Slanket. (Who came up with the name Slanket anyway? That sounds like some weird sexual act.)

Anyway I went to Walgreens Sunday night and they had Snuggies for $15. I had decided I wanted one after Christmas when I was trying to read with a blanket over me and found that I couldn't turn the pages of my book without disturbing the delicate way I had the blanket to cover my arms and my feet.

Of course I only needed one Snuggie, not two, and wasn't keen on the 6-8 week shipping time so I decided to wait until it showed up in stores like these things always do.

I will say that the fabric of the Snuggie is cheap. But considering that to make one of better fabric would involve going to the fabric store, picking out fabric, paying more than $15 for it (I would guess this thing uses 4-5 yards of fabric), prewashing, cutting the peices out and sewing them together, i'll just settle for the cheap fabric. Plus I got the book light.

So yes I bought a Snuggie. Last night I was able to cross stitch and stay warm at the same time. And now i'm ready at a moment's notice for some low-rent wizard cosplay.

Invasion of the Mooninites

Yes, I charted and stitched this myself. I finished it last year, but still haven't framed it. I've thought about selling the pattern on Etsy, but i'm concerned about copyright issues. Of course from what i've seen of cross stitch patterns on Etsy, i'm the only one who is worried about that sort of thing. But whatever happens the Moonitites have landed and made their intentions clear.

And Now For Something Completely Different

So now that my blood pressure has finally come down from yesterday's post, I can post about something nice. Something that doesn't have anything to do with child rape.

The 2009 Nordic Needle Bookmark Challenge is starting up again. Last year I sent in four bookmarks (pictured) and this year I hope to double that.

Full information is here, about half way down the page. The bookmarks go to the Stitching for Literacy Project.

Bookmarks in any type of needlework are welcome. As the newsletter says last year the techniques varied widely: "The techniques included Cross stitch, Hardanger, embroidery on paper, Blackwork, canvas work, needlepoint, pulled and drawn thread, Bobbin lace, tatting, crochet, knitting, machine embroidery, peyote beading, Bargello, Schwalm, and crewel embroidery. There were bookmarks from at least 29 states and 6 countries. "

I am quite proud that my bookmarks were among the over 450 donated.

Last year I only managed four bookmarks because I started late and decided on using some of the varigated floss that I had never had a chance to use. You see when using varigated floss you have to make each individual cross stitch instead of making a row and then going back over them to cross them so it takes twice as long to stitch an area. I enjoyed using the floss, but the time it took was a little much for me. (This was prior to the sleep disorder diagnosis.)

This year I have a different plan. I spent Inauguration Day out of work because of the snow. As I celebrated Hope and Change and tried not to be blinded by Aretha Franklin's hat (seriously, I think her hat was signaling to the aliens or something) I reorganized my cross stitch supplies. I gathered all the floss from kits I had finished and kept the strands that were mostly or completely intact and tossed the short lengths. I felt like a pack rat keeping the things, but I really didn't want to throw them out. So not knowing what I was going to do with them I put them in zipper bag.

Now my plan is to use very simple patterns and sayings, and rather than use the colors specified, use the left over floss. This way I won't have to pull five different colors of floss for each bookmark and will hopefully make stitching them faster. Faster means I can make more of them.

I'm really excited about this. I get to use up old floss, scraps of fabric and some of the free designs i've found on the internet. And i'm encouraging people to read. This would be win-win if my damn tendonitis wasn't acting up. Of course that gives me an excuse to take drugs that make me feel gooooood. So I guess it's win-win-win!

Ruminations on Life Inside a Cult

Yes another TV related post. I watch a lot of TV, what, wanna fight about it? (Speaking of TV related posts, i've been meaning to put another one up on my current brain crack The Real Housewives of Orange County, but damn, there is so much flying around the brain on that one.)



Anyway, yesterday I watched Life Inside a Cult on The National Geographic channel (I refuse to call them Nat Geo, same as I refuse to call The History Channel just History.)



The show focused on the Strong City Cult in New Mexico lead by a man calling himself Michael Travesser (His given name is Wayne Bent) who believes that he is God and predicted the end of the world on October 31st 2007. All members of his cult have given up working in the outside world and all their disability and social security checks as well as current and future inheritance goes to him. He also uses his status as leader of the cult to have sex with women in the cult and lay naked with young girls as a religious experience.



I'll give you a moment to let all that sink in and vomit if neccesary. What am I saying? If.



Ok, now that we've all done the technicolor yawn and gotten a Breathsaver...



Of course the world didn't end on Halloween 2007. The camera crew wasn't allowed in the compound at the supposed moment of whatever was supposed to happen (Travesser was very vague about what was supposed to happen that night, only telling the crew that he would receive a new physical form. His lackey Jeff said that world would be judged, but I don't recall that occuring either.) but they were allowed to stand at the gates to the compound as his followers cheered and danced and shouted freedom. What exactly they were freed from wasn't clear. Afterwards no one would say wether or not he did receive a new form, so we can all figure out the answer to that.

Now I could rant all day about this man and his mind control, his theft of his follower's money, and the criminal acts he's committed with minors, but the last time I started in on that sort of thing it took four klonopin and a tranq dart to bring me down.

No, what i've decided to rant about is what has stuck with me even more all that and made me really sad.

In the opening scene two girls, I would say about 14 to 17 years old are walking and talking about how happy they'll be to go to (what I presume, again, this wasn't made very clear) heaven. Because "they weren't meant to live in this world".

Now throwing out the logic of God wouldn't put you weren't supposed to be, I ask, really?

This is so sad to me. Now i'll be glad to get to heaven too. I'll see my family and freinds who have passed on, and all the kittehs i've loved and lost, and of course be in the presence of Jesus, but that doesn't keep me from living my life here on Earth to it's fullest.

Travesser says later in the program that the outside world is empty. I think it's as empty or as full as you want it to be.

Yes, you can go out into the world and smoke rock, have stupid sex with anyone you meet, marry for money instead of love, spend your life in persuit of material things, and die as empty and worthless as a crushed soda bottle.

Or you could visit an art museum and take in the creativity of your fellow humans. You can sit in a park and watch the squirels and birds and be awed at how they always have enough of what they need. You can go to a library and read books that you'll remember your whole life. (Shameless plug here for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.) You can climb a lighthouse and think about all the lonely hours the keeper spent up there running the light to keep sailors safe. You can marry someone who is your best freind, who you can't wait to see everyday. You can have a kid, plant a garden, build a house, get a dog.

Of course no discussion of this is complete without me bringing needle work into it. What is empty about making a birth sampler for a freind's baby? Making a quilt? Knitting a sweater?

Or what about people working in hospice care? Or training seeing eye dogs? Or volunteering in a soup kitchen? Or teaching people how to read? You really think their lives are empty?

To me the lives of the people in Strong City seemed empty. They didn't work. I'm sure they did work around the compoud, maybe growing food and cleaning up and such. But in their off time they only seemed to sit and listen to Travesser. When they weren't doing that they were talking about him and what he had said. And of course some time was taken up by the girls and their laying naked time.

I know all this is a moot point. I know that if Travesser was to allow his followers outside the compound or even to think that going into the outside world was desirable then his hold over them would loosen. That it is imperative that they see the world as empty or his sweet life of free money and child abuse is over. I know this.

But it just makes me so fucking sad.

I want to shake these kids. (Fuck the adults, they're a lost cause.) I want to buy them nail polish and makeup, Super Soakers and Playstations. I want to give them a Happy Meal and let them watch Spongebob. I want to make them ride bikes, blow bubbles, go to the movies, and listen to the Jonas Brothers until they wake up and realize that life is great outside the compound. That you don't have to live in a trailer in the desert to be fulfilled. That God isn't a creepy old man who wants you get naked with him. That God put them on this Earth for some reason, that they are supposed to be here, and maybe they should try and figure that reason out instead of sitting around hoping for the end of the world.

As for Travesser, he's the type of person who makes me fervently hope that Hell is real. In the meantime his sweet life of domination and sexual assault has come to an end.

In December 2008, Wayne Bent was convicted of one count of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. On Dec 30th he was given the maxium sentence for these crimes, 18 years. However, eight of those years were suspended. (I would really like to know why.) He'll have to serve at least 8 1/2 years before being released.

I've always heard that prison is Hell for child abusers. Again I fervently hope this is true. If not that's ok. Hell is Hell. And I hear it's especially bad on false prophets.

Common Sense: "Detoxing" is Crap. Literally.

Thank you New York Times for publishing an article that says just that.

When I see ads for these detoxing products it drives me crazy. I think of Marge Simpson chiding the three card monty person for preying on the gullible and stupid.

Quick quiz. Have you gone to the bathroom recently? Done #1 or #2? Then you're detoxed.

Remember way back in 10th grade biology when you learned about the excratory system? The kidneys, the liver, the colon? That's your detox right there. God given and perfect. No additional laxatives or diuretics required. (Because you know that's all this stuff is. Laxatives and diuretics.)

Now let's say you haven't been to the bathroom recently. You have problems with that sort of thing. Then you need to be in the care of a doctor. A real, live, went to medical school for like 10 years doctor. A person with MD behind their name. They can figure out why your liver and kidneys are failing. Usually before you die of this sort of thing.

I guess people don't want common sense. They want to believe that what ever is wrong with them can be cured by multiple trips to the bathroom. Well, sorry. Doesn't work that way.

Don't even get me started on those fucking Kinoki foot pads.

Long Weekends are Looooooong.

Well this one was anyway.

We got snow! SNOW! Beautiful, white, fluffy snow! Like, four inches of it! Enough that classes here were cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday.

So my three day weekend turned into a five day weekend. Oh, it was niiiiiice.

I made a snowman, but he didn't send me any snowman themed furniture. Bastard.

I dyed Josh's hoodie since the black was fading.

I did laundry.

I washed dishes and cleaned up my kitchen.

I moved some things into the attic and others into the laundry room to be closer to the attic. (These things are Christmas decorations that still need to make the big move into the attic for another year.)

I watched the inauguration which is notable because I never watch that sort of thing.

I started work on getting my office into order.

I reorganized my cross stitch things.

I finished a UFO (unfinished object) from two years ago. (A small kit of Eeyore and a butterfly.)

I read The Worst Jobs in History and finished The Ghost Map. I picked back up The Subversive Stitch.

I watched a lot of stuff on my Tifaux and then deleted it which makes me very happy. I love to see my available time increase when I delete something.

Basically a whole lot of nothing. Or rather a whole lot of little things that I never seem to get around to doing. That being said I am glad to be back at work. I get stir crazy at home after a while. But it was very nice to relax when I needed to and not have to worry about when the things that needed to be done were going to get done.

Long weekends are loooooong. They're also very nice.

Topic Snack Mix

A little of this, a little of that...

Bride Wars. Ugh. You know, many, many women get married and have nice weddings with the poofy dress and the reception hall and all that without going batshit insane. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. Most women don't get engaged and then loose their damn minds. Most are able to plan a lovely wedding with all the trimmings with out turning into a wedding obsessed bitch. And in this specific case (if I understand correctly the premise of the movie is that two weddings are booked on the same day, at the same time at the same location) the problem would come down to who signed a contract and made a deposit first. And I doubt this would happen or not be caught earlier in the process. Whatever. One more peice of Women are Crazy Bitches so Let's Continue Denying them Equal Rights crap from Hollywood. Fuck you.

I Was Bitten. This show should be two shows. The first show should be called Don't Fuck With Snakes or Other Dangerous Creatures Dumbass. The second should be called Holy Crap Talk About Some Bad Luck There. The first show could feature people like the guy who decided to take a poisonous rattle snake home for a pet, or the other guy who did the same thing, only put the rattlesnake into a TRASH BAG and didn't even tie it up so of course the snake got out of the bag and was PISSED! The second show could have the guy who was bitten by a Brown Recluse after picking up a blanket off the floor beside his bed and the guy who was mauled and nearly killed by a bear on a fishing trip. And there was the guy who was surfing and was attacked by a Great White Shark, but he was also on I Survived and it kinda bugs me when people like that double dip with the reality shows. Like this one guy who was on Mystery Diagnosis and on Mystery ER. Pick one. Anyway, i'll watch again and be horrified at the spectacularly bad luck of some and the breathtaking stupidity of others.

Intervention. I love some Intervention. But last week's episode about John the diabetic who didn't manage his condition was a crashing bore. I seriously could not bring myself to care. I even fast forwarded through the intervention itself. I felt for the guy not having any freinds and for his parents worrying about his health, but it wasn't good tv. Give me the people shooting up into their necks and freaks with feeding tubes for 14 years any day. That is compelling. John is boring.

Today on my way to work NPR had a story about the word of the year for 2008. They brought up all the variations on Obama, including Nobama which is already being used for his 2012 re-election campaign. That doesn't exist yet. Because he's not even taken office yet! People, let the man take office before talking shit about him possibly running for re-election four years from now. Really. Jeez.

Anyway, those are my assorted thoughts you are welcome to munch on.

Yes We Can have more Random Acts of Geekiness

Remember these? Weren't they fun? Well here's one.

Josh and I were watching The Real Housewives of Orange County a week or two ago (Shut up!). It was the episode where Vicki and Tamra et al go to Lake Havasu in Arizona.

Now each time a segment featuring the Lake would come up the intro would point out that it was 120 degrees there.

After a few segments that mostly featured huge amounts of alcohol being consumed I paused the show and said:

"You know, if it's 120 degrees out there they really don't need to be drinking so much. Alcohol dehydrates you and i'd be worried about getting heat stroke."

To which Josh replied:

"You're such a nerd!"

Yeah, I know.

Dear Provigil: Don't Think Twice

Yes Provigil, this is the end of Us.

I know, this wasn't supposed to happen to you. You're the new hotness for sleep disorders and general wakefullness promotion. You were supposed to sweep me off my feet and make me feel better. Make me feel like doing stuff after I got home from work instead of sleeping. This was supposed to be the start of beautiful freindship that continued on and on until I grew old and you became a generic and I stuck with you for cost reasons. After all, why try a new anti-narcoleptic when you worked fine and were only $10 a month?

But that's not how it's going to be.

I gave you a second chance on the recommendation of my nuerologist. I took you back on the promise that taking 100mg of you twice a day wouldn't give me the headache and that the benefits would outweigh the fact that you interfere with my birth control. What's using a back up method when your sleep disorder is controlled and you can finally function again? Surely that's worth the hassel of hunting down the once again discontinued Today Sponge. Of course it is I told myself.

Of course like so many second chances this one failed.

You failed to provide me with any noticeable improvement with the hypersomnia. I still felt crappy. I still needed to nap on a daily basis. I still dragged myself through the day at work and went home to sleep everyday.

Granted this was when I was only taking the first 100mg dose and not the second. I feared taking that second dose reluctant to put myself in pain. But I decided Monday that a new year meant that I needed to be more compliant and go all in with this second chance. Monday I took my second dose. Tuesday I took both doses. By Tuesday afternoon I had a screaming headache.

You know how when you hit your head on something you have that really intense pain for a split second? That's what my headache felt like. Like I was constantly hitting my head on something.

I took two Imitrex that night and when that didn't get rid of the headache I took an Ambien to try and sleep it off. I still have that headache. It's more manageable, but it's there. I'm hoping it will go away once the higher levels of you are out of my system.

The headache tore it. No more. I will keep taking 100mg of you in the morning to stave off the weird withdrawal sickness I get, but I will never again take a higher dose of you. And as soon as I get a doctor to ok me going off you completely I will.

Don't be too sad though. I'm sure someday you'll find a nice girl with a sleep disorder that you can help. It really is me, not you. I'm one of the few that get terrible headaches from you. So try and buck up. As the song says, don't think twice, it's alright.

I'm getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.

This story was on Jezebel today and I had to share it. Nothing like badass bikers rescuing sweet little kittehs to make me tear up.

There are good people in the world. Sometimes those good people look like what we're told are bad people. You just never know.

ETA: Link to the story the NY Times did on these guys.

Not Oscar Bait.

So I'm starting to doubt that I have a sleep disorder. Basically I don't feel any better on the meds i'm on for the hypersomnia, and they don't seem to be having any effect at all. If anything i've noticed myself getting worse these last few months and certainly these last few weeks.

I'm on a low dose of the Provigil, but I think I should notice it doing something. The Ritalin and the Vyvanse made me jittery, but I wasn't much more awake, alert or energetic on them.

Here lately I've been getting up, taking the Provigil and needing a nap about two hours later. Yesterday I took my morning dose and my afternoon dose then went home and slept two and half hours. Clearly it's not working.

Furthering my doubt along is that I don't always feel sleepy. I want to lay down, I want to close my eyes and I can surely sleep. But I don't always feel sleepy. I often feel worn out, wrung out, generally crappy. Like i'm still getting over a flu. Like I still have Mono (that was ten years ago BTW). Like my blood is made of lead. Something is wrong here and I don't think it's that my brain is confused about whether it's day or night.

Now let me be clear about this: I am not upset with my doctors for possibly diagnosing me with the wrong thing. As far as doctors go I have rolled 20s each time. I think they have put forth a yoeman effort in trying to figure out what the hell is going on here. But fatigue is the king of non specific symptoms and it's baffled and eluded some of the best doctors in the world.

So i'm back on the treadmill of doctors appointments for the time being. At the very least it'll give me something to write about in next year's Christmas letter.

New Year Blahs.

We lost the Liberty Bowl. Damn. Oh well, we're still Conference USA Champs. Not that that's much to crow about.

It's raining here.

I have no energy to take down the Christmas stuff.

I'm so sick of candy. And I have so much of it left.

Back at work. Nuff said.

House is still a wreck. I should really just learn to accept that.

House still needs repairs.

I never did make that ginger bread house. I guess it will be ok in the package until next year.

My only bright spots right now are the new Intervention on my Tifaux and the new Real Housewives of Orange County airing tonight. And my new ring. Which is still really sweet.

But mostly i'm looking forward to going home and getting back in the bed. Only four hours to go.

The obligatory post that mentions the economy

So i've been sitting on my ass watching TV non stop for the last few days and I can't go twenty full minutes without seeing a Cash 4 Gold commercial. I even heard a radio ad earlier tonight on my way to Walgreens encouraging me to sell my broken, used and unwanted jewelry for extra money.

Now I know the economy is in the shitter and doesn't seem to be coming out any time soon. But I can't get over how suddenly the answer to every body's money problems is to sell our jewelry like a bunch of crack heads looking for a fix.

I mean really, is this not the lamest get rich quick scheme you've ever heard? And how much broken and unwanted jewelry do people really have? I doubt it's enough to make a serious dent in anyone's credit card debt or make a mortgage payment.

I don't know. It just strikes me funny that all of a sudden I can't turn around without an ad showing up wanting my old jewelry. It's actually pretty annoying. Hopefully this trend will die out soon. After all, it's called a pawn shop. They've been around forever. This isn't really a new idea.