Santa Biggzy was good to me.

Really, really fucking cool.

Check this out.

I've always wanted to cross stitch a brain, but could never figure out how to make it really detailed. I guess I should have tried knitting. (First I would have to learn how to knit.)

Kudos! I love to see people bringing the geek to crafts!

(Image from www.iheartguts.com where I will surely be spending some of my Christmas money.)

A whole other reason to call it the Dethcruiser.

Josh and I are fans of the show Metalocalypse. If you aren't familiar with this offering from Adult Swim it's about the wacky, and often deadly, adventures of the most popular heavy metal band on Earth, Dethklok.

Of course things that surround Dethklok are as Metal as possible. For instance their motorcycle with four side cars (so the whole band can ride along) is called the Murdercycle. You get the idea.

So Josh and I started calling our car, a PT Cruiser, the Dethcruiser. We had even thought about getting some kick ass graphics on the back window that said Dethcruiser. (Only with the little dots over the e like all good metal bands have since they can't use an a.)

But now that isn't funny anymore. The Insurance Institute for Highway Saftey has named the PT Cruiser the most dangerous new small car in America.

Not that I was planning on putting a bun in the oven any time soon, but this was supposed to be our family car. The one to stick the little n00bs in to go see Grandma, to go to the beach, to drive to the Asheboro Zoo. So when I do decide to get good and knocked up not only will we need a bigger house, but we'll also need a different car.

In the meantime this is one more thing to give me panic attacks as we drive all over 2/3s of North Carolina like, next week.

Now to await the reports that American Girl Dolls are made of cyanide and that cross stitching gives you cancer.

MY EYES! OH GOD MY EYES!

So I was watching the new episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County (Shut up! I know, ok. I know.) last night and I have to ask:

Was it really necessary to show the pasty white flabby ass of George as he got a massage? I mean really people. I nearly lost my dinner. Ugh.

And as Lauri lay face down stretched out getting her massage with her leg hanging out of the sheet, all I could think of was that it looked like she had been murdered. All she needed was some stab wounds.

Is that bad?

It is? Oh well. Don't care. Lauri, we all hate you. We all know you're a gold digger who threw your drug addicted kid under the bus for the latest fat wallet that would agree to marry you. And all that plastic surgery has made you look like a horse after Chernobyl. I'm happy to see you go. Please don't return. You are fucking up my guilty pleasure and giving me nightmares.

Yes that's right. Of all the shows I watch on a regular basis, Most Evil, Deranged, Crime Stories, it's you and your freaky face that haunts my subconscious. Not Richard Ramirez. Not The Vampire of Sacramento. Not Charles Manson. You.

Maybe next week i'll be able to enjoy my brain candy. With you on the show i'm forced to think of your son in jail and how he may not have ended up there if you weren't such a self-centered parent. And your daughter Ashley who can't get a single word of praise or encouragement to pass your deformed silly putty lips. Or you youngest who you say hasn't disapointed you. Yet.

Yes Lauri. Your presence on The Real Housewives of Orange County makes me think too much. And that isn't what this show is about.

TV Breakup: PBS

Oh PBS. You've burned me too many times.

I've tuned in so many times to watch Nova or Frontline only to be disapointed. I blamed it on the election. PBS has to cover the NC Governor debates, right? Of course they do. I forgave you PBS. Many times.

But last night was the last straw. I was excited! Point of View: Inheritance. The daughter of a Nazi officer at Plaszow meets a woman who lived through the hell of the concentration camp and finds out how evil her dad was. This is like porn to me. First person, living witness, history geek porn. I tuned in at 9:00 ready to get my history on.

Winterfest. You were begging for money PBS. And you know, I've thought about donating to you before. But why donate when I don't even watch? Well heck, i'll start watching PBS. And then heartbreak.

So up yours PBS. I'm going out with your hotter, more reliable brother PBS.org. At least he has a lot of shows I want to see online. He won't let me down like you have.

It's beginning to look a lot like...a bomb hit.

So let's say that you were to walk into my house right now. The front door and small foyer lead into the living room. Let's go around the living room counter-clockwise. You will see:

Empty curio cabinet in the middle of a reorganization that is on hold surrounded by various cardboard boxes that contain presents that need to be wrapped or very fragile frogs from the curio cabinet that are nestled in packing peanuts. Also three rolls of wrapping paper, some adhesive gift labels and a pop up tape dispenser.

TV and TV stand surrounded by not so fragile frogs from the curio cabinet in addition to all the ususal crap that finds it's way there for some reason.

In the corner, a naked North Carolina Frasier Fir in the stand with the prettier side facing the corner. Yes, we got a tree. No, it has not been decorated.

Fireplace that we don't use because we don't know how to use the gas logs. My silk topiaries look pretty because I put the bows on them last night. Above them is the mantle with the ususal assortment of wedding pictures surrounded by, you guessed it. More frog refugees from the curio cabinet who were originally on the sewing machine that was in the corner until we had to move it to make room for the tree.

Corner. This is where the magic happens. Yes this corner is my lair, nest, foxhole, flying coccoon. It contains my recliner from Goodwill, all the various projects i'm working on, and everything else important. Mail for me, my medicine, my DS, my Wii controller, various catalogs, my Animal Crossing strategy guide, usually some snacks. Everything. It will never be neat and clean. So! Moving on!

The couch. The couch is actually in good shape. There is no crap on it. There is plenty of crap around and in front of it on the coffee table. I don't know what this crap is. I only know that to keep the coffee table clean I would have to move it from the living room to the attic where it will never be used again. And then we would just start putting crap on the floor in front of the couch.

Desk. On the desk is a colony called New Froginton. Living here are the frogs who left the curio cabinet to start a new society of pious frogs who live simply and seek only to glorifiy their amphibious creator and escape the corrupt and sinful reign of King Ribbit. And the laptop. And in the chair is the stack of DVDs that was on the sewing machine before it was moved to make room for the tree. And there's a hole in the bottom of the sea.

Finally we come to the hope chest. This currently houses the two foot tall tree I decorated for my dolls, the presents I've wrapped so far and the various other things that reside there the rest of the year. I don't think a fly could find room to land on it in it's current state.

Oh, and the floor needs to be vacuumed. And in the kitchen we still have the box that the big TV came in. I've been throwing other boxes in it. And the sewing machine and it's chair are in the kitchen along with the ususal mess that's in the kitchen.

So my house is a wreck. More so than ususal. And getting things to where they need to be hinges on several things that don't seem like they're going to happen anytime soon. But that's ok. Because this is why hot chocolate tastes great with some Bailey's in it. To keep people from going mental during the holiday upheaval. Right? Right?

It's beginning to look a lot like...every other day the rest of the year.

So...this weekend.

Friday I mildly buzzed and watched The Nutcracker. I planned on a productive weekend of Christmas decorating. I was sooooo wrong about that.

Now this is the thing about my sleep disorder. I'm currently on Provigil. It helps a bit. I can get through my day at work without feeling like I need to nap under my desk George Costanza style. I don't feel great. I don't feel like my brain can tell the difference between night and day. But I do feel ok.

EXCEPT if I miss a dose. I have been instructed to not take the Provigil on the weekend. Well it took about three weekends for me to figure out that this isn't going to work. The first day I skip the meds I feel alright. I can tell I didn't take it, but otherwise I feel ok. But the second day without the meds...fuuuuuuuuuck. I feel like aaaaaaaass. Like I have some awful flu combined with a hangover. I want to sleep all day and when i'm awake I don't really want to move.

So why is this important? I forgot to take my meds Friday morning. So Saturday I felt like ass. In addition to this Josh was at the bar with his freinds watching the game all afternoon (Conference USA Champs bitches!) so he wasn't home to help me with the little I felt like doing and I really need him to help getting things out of the attic. When he got home from the bar at five he laid down and slept until about eight. So Saturday was shot.

Sunday I got up and went to Wal-mart, Target, Michaels, The Dollar Store and Walgreens in my usual morning grocery shopping/errand running. When I got home at eleven I needed to rest. (I still have to rest even with the Provigil. I don't sleep, but it helps me recharge.) I got up at 1:30 and ate lunch. We then went to K-mart since they were the only place I hadn't looked for a new wreath yet and I had heard that trees were being sold in the parking lot.

Now K-mart was crazy. The didn't have a wreath I liked. They didn't have the new pillows Josh needed. They did have a blood pressure machine.

At his last doctor's appointment Josh's blood pressure was a little high so they told him to keep a watch on it. So he decided this was the time. And his blood pressure was WAY high. Like both numbers in the three digit range. So I spent the rest of the time trying to convince him that he wasn't going to die RIGHT NOW. There were no trees in the parking lot and Josh was hungry because he didn't eat before we left the house like I suggested. So we called all this off and went home where Josh moped about his blood pressure and then fell asleep until about eight again. So Sunday was a bust.

Now it's Tuesday and the only sign of Christmas at our house is the stack of wrapped gifts on the hope chest because we don't have a tree to put them under.

So i'm not sure what to do. Josh is occupied the rest of this week with exams here at the university and still teaching at the community college since they have classes two weeks longer than the univeristy does.

I think my dolls will be dressed up and put out for Christmas tonight since Abigail's dress is coming in today. (I bought her Addy's Christmas dress. So pretty! It's a Civil War era style, but that's ok. Abigail likes to kick it old school.) But what about the tree? That's what really makes it feel like Christmas. I have three options.

Option 1: Wait until Josh has time to help me get things out of the attic and for us to go buy a tree. Pros: I don't have to do anything on my own that I can't handle and may lead to failure or disaster. We get to do this stuff together which is always fun. The overall awesomeness of a real North Carolina Frasier Fir. The one and only Chirstmas tree in my book. Cons: Time is slipping away and I don't want to put stuff up only to have to take it all down in a really short period of time. The wrestling with a live tree and getting it in a stand. Leaving it while we're gone and hoping it doesn't dry out too bad. Finding a place to buy a tree since the Lions Club isn't out at Wal-mart this year.

Option 2: Buy an artificial tree. Pros: I can put it up myself. It can be prelit so no fussing with lights. Prelit trees are getting more affordable. We'd have a tree ready to go if we're too broke to buy a real tree next year. All the branches are of equal strength so no fussing with heavy ornaments trying to get them on the right branch. No watering the thing. No cleaning up needles. Cons: Just not as pretty as a North Carolina Frasier Fir. Bigger out of pocket cost than a real tree. Josh still has to be there to help me get things out of the attic. We have to store the thing and the attic is getting crowded.

Option 3: Use my three foot high artificial tree. Pros: No watering or cleaning needles. We already have the thing. I can put it up. Cons: Josh will still need to help me get the ornaments from the attic. It's not prelit so i'll have to mess with lights. It will need to sit on a peice of furniture, most likely the sewing machine so the cats will have something to try and jump on the examine the thing. Since it's on the sewing machine there won't be room for many presents adn they'll have to sit on the floor. I'll feel like a cop-out for putting up a lame tree.

Josh is no help in this. He tells me it's all my decision. He does that a lot. It annoys the hell out of me. If he wants a big tree I wish he would just tell me and i'll strike Option 3 off the list and focus on 1 and 2. If he wants a real tree then i'll say ok and prepare to rally for that little outing. I need guidance dammit! It's his Christmas too! Of course him being so passive has it's positive side sometimes. This just isn't one of those times.

Of course this isn't just about the tree and the decorating. It's facing the fact that I have a chronic health problem that is going to make various parts of my life a real pain in the ass and I don't have much recourse. It's trying to be ok with my sleep disorder and meds fucking up my weekend plans and getting in the way of making the most of the time that I do have to do things.

I guess Charlie Brown isn't the only one who can take a wonderful thing like Christmas and turn it into a problem.

I really should relax and not worry about all this, but we'll be out of town of Saturday and for a few days surrounding the actual holiday so I feel like we need to get things done so we can enjoy them for as long as we can while we're here.

So I still don't know what we're going to do. We'll do something. But i'm not sure what. And that is driving me crazy!

Feeling festive? No akshually. But maybe we can fix that.

So this weekend I declared that we would put up the Christmas tree. Because if not now, when? If we wait until i'm feeling festive enough to initiate it (and I always have to initiate it) then it'll be January before the thing goes up.

I'm not sure why i'm not feeling it right now. I think part of it comes from living in NC where it doesn't get cold until November and rarely if ever snows. Snow would help with my mood. Or maybe not having to worry about all the effort that goes into Christmas. The tree, the moving things, the dragging crap out of the attic. I don't mind the shopping, but I just don't feel well enough to do everything else normally done at Chirstmas. Like baking. I love baking. But the prospect of getting my kitchen dirty and having to clean it makes me want to take a nap.

But I have resolved to try and get in the mood. Things are coming out of the attice tomorrow, i've ordered a Christmas dress for Abigail and i'm looking forward to dressing her and the other girls up. And tonight I decided to open the spumante I bought for Thanksgiving and get loaded and watch The Nutcracker.

Of course on second thought maybe that was a bad idea. When I was watching this the other night it just made me depressed that I never became a ballerina. (For realz. I seriously wanted to be a ballet dancer when I grew up. I didn't grow out of it when I hit puberty.) Oh well, what's more normal at Chirstmas than depression?

I guess the answer to that is dragging a live tree into your house to sit in water, cover with electric lights and surround with flamable things. And fattening food. And watching Russian people skip around in tights. Is that the magic of Christmas i'm starting to feel? Or is the alcohol starting to kick in? Meh. What difference does it make?

This is what happens...

When I go off on a tangent.

Here is a link to the offending article.

And her name is ALEX KUCZYNSKI. I meant to check over my spelling of her name but I got all posty and forgot.

What did I just say about stepping the fuck off!

Sigh. Here we muthafucking go again.

Let me bring you up to speed if you don't run in the same online circles as I do.

Alex Kuczynski, a writer and somewhat popular target for online snark, wrote an article about her experience with infertility and her eventual use of a gestational surrogate in last week's New York Times Magazine. And then the shit hit the fan.

Kuczynski has since been criticized by everyone for everything. No, really. She's been taken to task for (of course) being vain enough not to adopt, not accepting her "fate" as a woman who can't have children, being rich, writing a past book on plastic sugery, and allegedly being rude to the woman carrying her child. Of course the thornier issues that surround surrogacy have been brought up, and while these issues are valid and make for interesting discussion, Kuczinsky has been crucified as if she's the only woman ever to take part in such a strange arrangement.

Now i'm not really familiar with Kuczynski and her body of work and the various things she's done to incite this type of ire. I've read about her in passing on Gawker, but that's about it. So I admit that I came to read her article with an open mind about her as a person. I also came to it as someone who has been following a few infertility blogs for the past few years and has nothing but sympathy for the people who deal with this problem and acceptance of however they want to deal with it. So i'm not the best person to read this thing and look for things to criticize.

But should we be looking for things to criticize at all? I don't think so.

Let's start with the most obvious and frequently thrown egg. She should have adopted. There are lots of kids who need homes. How selfish and vain for her to go to such lengths to have a biological child when there are kids out there who need her.

Ok, now I'm all for adoption. If you want to adopt knock yourself out. But there are a lot of complications and moral gray areas that people who push adoption ignore. First of all, adoption is expensive. Granted Kucsinski could afford to adopt the same way she could afford to undergo several IVF cyles and then to compensate a surrogate, however, a lot of people out there find that they have a hard time concieving and once they look into adoption realize that they are financially better off to start on Clomid and see where it takes them.

There is also the matter of being allowed to adopt. Home studies prior to adoption are brutal. They can be just as, if not more, emotionally draining as enduring ART. At least if you're cycling with ART you can keep it to yourself or only share with trusted freinds and family. With a home study you have a stranger going through your life with a fine tooth comb looking for cracks all while you hold your breath and hope they judge you worthy of a child. We've also heard more stories recently about people being denied the chance to adopt for reasons that are out of this world. Things like obesity or past health problems have kept people who really want to give a child a home from doing that. I don't think I could stand it and I don't blame people for feeling the same way and choosing another option.

Another problem with adoption is that so many of the children needing homes are older children or children of a different race or ethnic background of those who are looking to adopt. People who wait years to adopt infants and very young children are often criticized for not adopting an older child. Yes, even when you adopt, you can do it wrong. I understand the concern for the older children who are waiting for homes. It is truley heartbreaking. However an older child presents obstacles that not everyone is ready to deal with. They may have health problems or behavioral issues that need extensive therapy or may never get better. The race and ethnicity issue is puzzling as well. How do you raise a child to know their heritage if you have never experienced it? Do they even need to be raised to know their heritage? That's a loaded question right there. People who pass on the opportunity to adopt an older child are often said to be too self-centered or wanting a perfect baby too much to take on the challenge. Well that's crap. I think it's vital that people know their limits, especially when considering something as monumental as raising a child. I think most people's reluctance to adopt an older child comes from a fear not of failing as parents, but of failing the child who needed them most.

Another question I always ask myself when reading these things is "Why is it up to them to adopt? How many kids have you adopted? Oh, none. Because you could have your own kids. I see. " There is so very much wrong with people telling others what their lot in life is but so often we can't keep ourselves from doing just that. A large part of what bothers me about the hoopla surrounding Kucynski's article is the amount of criticism that is coming from the feminist community when so many of their comments smack of the paternalism they claim to despise and that we all are working hard to overcome.

I also think that it's fucked up to criticize and discount the desire to have a biological child. The urge to spread our genes around has been ingrained in us through millions of years of evolution. We like to think that we've overcome these base desires but really we haven't. It's why the family of an addict enables, why we eat more when more is given to us, why our blood boils when someone threatens our home and why people spend years and thousands of dollars trying to concieve with ART. We are to spread our genes and then protect them to the bitter end.

On a slightly higher mental level I also understand the desire to make a baby with your spouse. Kucynski brings this up in her article. She wants the love between her and her husband to be embodied in a child. I can't blame her for that. I've thought many times about the translucent baby Josh and I will have, maybe with my blue eyes and his naturally curly hair. Or maybe little Evelyn will have my will not hold a curl hair and her dad's brown eyes and big head. I'm still amazed at how much my father in law looks like his mom, and how I sound like my mom on the phone. These are the things baby dreams are made of and I don't think it's fair to rip someone to shreds for holding on to these dreams month after month of negative pregnancy tests, disapointment, sadness, feeling like you're broken, and then through the injections, doctor visits, and failed cycles that come with ART. When the hope of having a baby with mom's nose and his dad's eyes is the only thing that gets someone up in the morning I think the selfish people are the ones who stomp on that dream because they feel uncomfortable with all the medical intervention, the money being spent, the kids in foster care, or the conviction that this person just wasn't meant to have kids.

So adoption isn't the panacea that it's often made out to be. It's not like in old cartoons and movies where you drive to the orphanage one Saturday and come home with a kid. If it were that easy i'm sure more people would adopt, but it's not and I can't sit in judgement of someone for taking a different route that felt right to them.

So now that i've dealt with all THAT...

Another complaint about Kucynski's arrangement and surrogacy in general is the fianacial incentives involved and that women who are surrogates are often in lower income brackets than the people who hire her. (Because there's nothing at all like this going on in adoption. All those kids came from upper middle class people and no one needed to consider their financial situation before making the heart rending choice to give up their child. Nope. Nothing like that going on at all.)

I actually call bullshit on the hang-wringing over the financial situation of Kucynski's surrogate and all the other surrogates out there. The concern is that these women aren't really making an informed and clear headed choice about being a surrogate because the money offered to them is too much to pass up. I'm not so sure about that.

In the case of Kucynski's surrogate she was very open and upfront about how the money from her surrogate pregnancy would help her and her family. As in, she was putting it towards her kid's college funds. So what's the problem? This woman has a home, a stable life, happy kids. I'm not getting that the money offered to her was coercive.

In fact Kucynski states in her article that surrogate agencies make a point of not accepting poor women as surrogates for many reasons, mainly that the money would be coercive to someone in dire straights. (Other reasons were a lack of health insurance and general poor health, and less life stability i.e. job, home, stable relationship.)

Mostly I think that what it comes down to is that surrogates choose to be surrogates. They are compensated for the amazing feat they are doing as they should be, but I don't think that there are many surrogates out there who are carrying another person's child just for the money. In the same way I could never be a stripper because it is just too much outside of my personality and I couldn't handle it no matter how good the money is, I don't think that we have to worry about women being surrogates for the money because if they don't want to do it everything involved will keep them from signing up. Pregnancy is 24/7 for nine whole months. It carries some pretty big health risks and giving birth is a huge ordeal. This isn't like a job where you're exploited for eight hours and then you go home. I have a very hard time believing that someone would sign up for all that pregnancy and birth entail with out being ok with all that and desiring an experience that goes beyond the money they are paid. (Keep in mind i'm only talking about America here. The booming rates of surrogacy in India are a different matter.) Again i'm puzzled by the vitrol spouted by feminist writers on this subject that assume that surrogates are being taken advantage of, a position that ignores the choice they had in the matter.

As for her being rude to the woman who was doing her an enormous service, I didn't see it. Sure some of the things she said in the article come off bad, but after 11 IVF cycles, four miscarriages and now one former stranger carrying a baby made of your egg and your husband's sperm things get complicated. Feelings get complicated. It's not always sunshine and lollipops. Sometimes it's envy, jelousy, anger, failure and loss. I admire Kucynski for writing openly about all those feelings knowing that they wouldn't be looked on kindly.

Finally the photos. Kucynski is pictured on her manicured lawn holding the product of this adventure, her son, with her baby nurse in the back ground. Her surrogate Cathy is pictured very pregnant and barefoot (yes, barefoot) sitting on her porch which needs to be repainted. These photos are anything but subtle. However the ire they stir up should be directed at the photo editior and the photographer who took these pictures and decided that it was a good idea to publish them with the story, not Kucynski who I am certain did not have any say in which photos were used with the story.

In a nutshell I don't hate Alex Kucynski. I don't judge her. I don't think anyone should. It's easy to live in our heads and wonder about the larger implications of ART and surrogates. It's easy to sit at your computer and type mean comments about all the kids in foster care. It's easy to go for the low blow and call someone a rich bitch who wanted the latest accessory, a baby.

What isn't easy is looking into someone's life and trying to understand their pain. It's hard to put yourself in the postion of spending five years trying to get pregnant. It's hard to fathom enduring four miscarriages. It's hard to think about how you would feel seeing another person carrying your baby. But what really seems to be hard, nearly impossible, for us as a society is too look at other people's choices and realize that they don't reflect on us. That how one person finds their way to parenthood is just that. One person and their journey. One family doing what is right for them.

We all need to stop fretting over what choices others make and get on with our own lives.

Julie beat me to posting but her perspective is worth a read as always. She's said what i'm thinking much more succinctly. But I think this post from Slate's XX Factor sums it up nicely: So what?

Have I mentioned we're consumer whores lately?

I guess in this case Josh is the consumer whore since it's technically his TV, but I went along with it and also saw like five things I wanted at Sears while we were browsing, so yeah, we're consumer whores.

The decision to buy a big ass TV came about because Josh's old TV in his den was losing color constantly and had to be whacked with a broom handle to get the color to come back. That has actually been going on for a while now. But then last week his Dish Network DVR died. This complicated things because:

-We technically own that reciever

-So rather than calling up Dish Network and having them send out a new one, we would have to pay for a new one which is at least a couple hundred dollars

-Which would be silly because we would need a new HD reciever anyway once we got the big TV

-And that would surely happen before the new reciever died

-So we may as well go ahead and get the big TV and go to Dish HD now that the TV and the reciever have croaked at the same time and the reciever is free with the sign up for the HD programming upgrade.

Make sense? Basically Josh got a new TV because his reciever/DVR died, his TV was on life support, I really didn't want to be his Tivo monkey for the forseeable future, and Circuit City gave him 36 months no interest. But he's happy and i'm happy he's happy eventhough I don't get the big TV thing.

I do however get the super cool refrigerator, dishwasher, diamond earring thing...

I told you I was a consumer whore.

A pleasant change from the usual microwaved crap I smell around here.

Someone has just microwaved something that smells like Fetticutine Alfredo and it smells soooooo good. Now i'm craving it but the soonest I can have it is dinner. And that's if I can convince Josh to go to Basil's tonight. It's going to be a long seven or eight hours.

Bright lights, Bad controller.

So last night I finally began playing Animal Crossing: City Folk.

The game came in on Sunday but we were out of town so it didn't get picked up until Tuesday. Then I had to wait for Josh to explain the complicated system of switches used to hook up the Wii in the living room and stand around to make sure I didn't some how break the Wii while trying to make my town. (What? I never said I was a video game geek.)

Now I love Animal Crossing. It's my game. I play it the way some people play World of Warcraft. But I didn't really enjoy City Folk right off because of the controller.

I realize i'm risking my Geek License here but I don't care. I don't like the nunchuck controller, I don't think it works well in the situations that come up in Animal Crossing, and i'm honestly kind of pissed at Nintendo for forcing their gimmicky controller on me.

I'm also still a bit pissed at the forced use of the touch screen in Wild World. The fact that the only efficient way to sell multiple items to Nook was by dragging them with the stylus really bugged the shit out of me. And did anyone really use the stylus to make their person walk around town? I couldn't get myself to move without either running or digging in random places. And of course there was the little fiasco of needing a second person in town to get any Spotlight Items but not being told this, and the cock up with the feather rewards for donating to Boondox that is so screwed up i'll never get my feathers and thus never have all the accessories. So Nintendo is a little on the outs with me already for their various gimmicks that don't really add to the game, but the nunchuck really pissed me off.

The nunchuck doesn't do anything that couldn't be done with the control stick and the A button. When you are forced to use the thing it's in the worst possible way. For instance to bring up my "pockets" where all my stuff is I have to move the Wimote so that the little hand is on the screen. Then I have to chose my pockets from the bottom of the screen. The problem is that my pockets are in the far left so it's very easy to move too far take the hand off the screen and the whole damn thing disappears. When i'm selling to Nook rather than use the control stick to move over my items I have to use the Wimote. Again the Wimote moves so erratically that it's a real pain in the ass to select an item. I dread how i'm going to have to fish with this thing.

Other than my burning hot hatred for the controller I was pretty pleased by the game so far. I like the feel of the big town that I didn't get with Wild World. I liked the return of different levels to the town. Shopping at Nook's Cranny gives me a nice sense of nostalgia for when things were simple and when I didn't have to deal with Tommy and Timmy at Nookingtons. I caught a cricket and donated it to the musuem, my first donation in this town. And of course there is a whole new world of terrible puns for me to read over and over again as I catch all the fish and bugs over the next year.

I haven't been into the city yet. Josh forgot to buy the strategy guide with the game so i'm waiting for it to come from Amazon before I venture beyond my town. I'm curious how the city will be. I know that Crazy Redd and Gracie have stores in the city, but i'm not sure how Wendell and Sahara will work. I am excited over this new aspect to the game, but i'm also a little sad that it's not about just living in your small town and making your way there anymore.

That said i'm sure i'll enjoy this game as much as i've enjoyed the last two. That is if the stupid controller doesn't annoy me enough to keep me from playing.

Oh Boy does this deserve a Facepalm...

Dear Prudence: My Family Thinks That an Exorcism Will Cure my Mental Illness

I would say that monkeys are delivering mail around here...

...but that would be an insult to some of God's most interesting and intelligent creatures. I'm fairly certain that a monkey could learn which mailbox in the mail room belongs to my department.

As for the people who somehow continue to address my mail to the English department despite the fact that I do not now, nor have I ever worked there, they have to be a special kind of stupid.

So...stupid animal. Hmmm. Sadly I think humans are the best fit here.

There is a flag on the field.

Insert whistle here. Team Put Up Our Chirstmas Decorations Two Weeks Before Thanksgiving has fouled. False start. You are penalized five yards and must repeat first down.

Everyone needs to step off!

And I mean that shit!

This Open Salon article about it's anti-feminist that Michelle Obama will "just be a mom" once the move into the White House is made has my blood pressure up.

The writer makes excellent points that I won't repeat here, but what I mostly got out of this article is that everyone needs to Shut The Fuck Up about parenting decisions that don't involve their child.

Sasha and Malia Obama are not your kids. Timmy down the road who is never seen without a Fun Dip is not your kid. You neice Becky who likes to play Xbox is not your kid. The three year old on that leash at Wal-Mart? Yeah, he's not your kid. The infant at the Red Lobster with a bottle? Not. Your. Kid.

Now don't get me wrong. I have some strong opinions about childrearing that i've formed from reading various websites, books, magazines, seeing the behavior of parents and their kids in public, and being the awesome but still flawed result of my own parents.

But you know what? I keep it to myself. I talk about these things with Josh since he'll be dad of any kids we have. I talk about it with my Mom and Dad since they're the most level headed people I know. I turn it all over in my head sometimes, going over the reasoning with myself again and again. But do I bring it up to strangers I encounter? No. Do I go bitching on the internet about how this person is doing it wrong, wrong, wrong? No. Do I even spout it here on my blog, where my pointless thoughts come to die? No, not so far. But that may change.

My point is that unless you have legal custody over a child (i.e. you created them somehow, adopted them or were granted gaurdianship by a court of law) you need to clam up.

And most likely you need to calm down.

Many of these little conniptions revolve around the possible harm that is coming to either the kids or the world at large over the decisions the parents in question have made.

Will feminism survive with Michelle Obama at home? Yeah, sure, why not? She's first lady at least for the next four years. Who knows what will happen in that time and what she may decide to do. But right now she, the woman who carried these two girls and knew them intimately before they were even here in many ways, thinks she needs to focus on her kids and making this HUGE transition easier on them. It makes perfect sense to me. But even if it didn't, it doesn't matter because (say it with me now!) they aren't my kids.

Will Timmy get cavities from his Fun Dip addiction? Maybe. Maybe not. Truth is a slice of bread will give you cavities if you let it sit on your teeth. Step off and trust Timmy's mom to make sure his teeth are brushed and he goes to a dentist. Does Becky play too much Xbox? Maybe. Maybe she gets plenty of exercise at school. You don't know. Her parents do.

Unless the kid is wrestling with the pet tiger, or Mom and Dad are making meth in the rumpus room, or there is some evidence of the kid being in immediate danger, calm down. Step off. Not your kid.

I know that the article is really more about a feminist hand-wringing, but it's just evidence of bigger problem of us making other people's lives all about us. And that problem gets soooooo much bigger when a kid is involved. It's all life and death then even when it's not. From breastfeeding vs. formula to what kids are being fed and what ever would happen if he was allowed to ride a bike down the street without his knee pads people think that it's dire enough to butt in and it's not. If kids were this delicate the human race would have died out by now.

We all need to adopt Not My Kid as a mantra and start trusting the people around us to raise the kids they have well their way.

And we can all stop worrying about feminism and Michelle Obama. She's a great lady, classy and smart. She'll do us feminists proud. And I think she'll do mothers proud too. But the only thing that really matters is that she do her kids proud, and I have no worries about that.

Yea! Wall-E!

My pre-ordered copy of Wall-E shipped Friday meaning that with my two-day shipping it will be here today. I'm so excited! I can't wait to watch it and see that sweet little guy with his Hello Dolly tape, his pet cockroach and his little whistles and chirps!

I really can't believe how much I loved this movie and this charecter. I swear I think I was captured by Pixar and studied so they would know how to make Wall-E capture my heart and my wallet. It's almost scary how deep my connection is to this charecter. Of course when you look at other people with a deep connection to a fictional charecter mine isn't so bad. I'm not dressing up as Wall-E to go clubbing and getting a job in the waste management industry to be more like him. (Vampire people i'm looking in your direction.)

Anyway, I don't care if Pixar did kidnap me. Fuck it. We only live once and Wall-E makes me happy and teary and want to squeeze something (like my Wall-E plush) so i'll be on the couch tonight watching my movie, crying, laughing, wishing Wall-E was real so he could come live with me and compress my trash and be adorable. (Of course EVE could come along too. She's Wall-E's soulmate. I couldn't separate them. Oh, there I go again tearing up.)

Comedien Ralphie May talks about being 'tard happy. Wall-E makes me 'tard happy.

And with exception of the use of the term "tard" is that so wrong? No. No it isn't. Maybe the world would be a better place if we could all get 'tard happy so easily.

It's the little things...

So my doctor yesterday (not my regular doctor, but I was there and in a mood to take my pants off so what the hell) didn't notice my somewhat hairy legs or my freshly shaven underarms. He did however complement my exceptionally clean belly button.

Yes, my belly button.

Apparently he has seen patients with a thick wool sweater in there and was moved to complement me on my vacant one.

And this is one of the reasons I could never be a doctor.

I'm a big medical geek. I read the Merck Manual for fun. I watch a lot of Discovery Health. I drove to Charlotte in January to see Body Worlds. I love to read about odd diseases and deformities. You think I would be perfect to be a doctor.

No. First, I hate needles. I don't think I could ever draw blood from someone. Besides that, do you know how doctors learn to draw blood? They practice on each other. No thanks. You don't get near my veins without being a phlebotomist with ten years experience and a Flintstones Chewable Valium for me. So no way in Hell would I be a blood letting dummy.

Second, I'm too emotional. I couldn't tell someone they were dying or had lost a pregnancy or was paralyzed. I cried through half of Wall-E. There are movies I haven't seen and don't intend to ever see because they're too sad. The bad part of medicine would break me.

Even if I did move past these little road blocks to become an actual doctor I couldn't deal with the nasty people I would end up seeing. The fact that it is not a common practice to wiggle a soapy finger around in your belly button every night is scary to me. I couldn't deal with doing a pap on a woman who hasn't changed her underwear in days, or examining the scalp of someone who doesn't wash their hair more often than once a month, or looking at an ingrown toenail of someone who doesn't wear socks. I know humans are gross, but that's why we have soap and water. I know that Americans are considered nuerotic by the rest of the world because we bathe everyday but i'm ok with that.

I just don't see why people with running water and a dollar in their pocket can't get clean. If you're homeless, I get it. Otherwise, come on. Soap is cheap. Water is less cheap, but take a bird bath. Wash your hair everyother day. There is no excuse.

And that is what I would end up telling the dirty people I would see as a doctor. And they would get all offended and I would end up paying off my medical school loans by working in a Jiffy Lube.

So anyway, body hair isn't an issue for my doctor. Belly button lint is.

Another interesting thing he told me is that when diabetics loose circulation in their feet the first thing they loose is their toe hair. (He told me this after noticing the few hairs on my toe I didn't even think about shaving, but ususally do.) So toe hair is good.

As a final note i'll warn you not to do a Google Image Search for belly button. You will find many, many pictures of people who have had tattoos done on their stomach with the belly button to be various bodily openings. It's gross. A bit clever I admit. I never would have thought of that, but maybe that's a good thing. But yeah, gross.

It's about love.

As a happily married Christian I implore you to read the text or watch the video of Keith Olberman's Final Thought on the passing of Prop 8, which bans gay marriage in California.

He echos my thoughts on the matter, that more love in the world is a good thing and that gay marriage doesn't detract from the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. He brings up the marriages that do, those that are gone into foolishly, without love, without trust, with one or both people involved knowing it's a sham.

He mentions the collateral damage of these marriages, damage that could have been avoided if only we allowed people to live their honestly and marry those they really care about.

So check it out. And think if you weren't allowed to marry the person you loved.

It begins...A new project. And other projects.

Look upon Scarlet Wizard. My next major project. The things I do for Josh. But he has been told that if we ever split it comes with me.

Now I know what you are thinking. "Surely a Blue Ribbon Cross Stitcher like yourself can handle this. It'll be done in no time."

But this is the thing. Scarlet Wizard here is stitched on 18 count black aida. That means that there are 18 little squares per inch. So the holes between the squares are very tiny and since the fabric is black it's hard to tell where the holes actually are.

To aid my poor eyes I have a clip on light and pulled out my 1.25 magnifying glasses. I was sure these had saved my life until last night when they gave me an eye strain headache like you wouldn't believe. I had to put the thing away and work on some needlepoint to give my eyes a break.

I'm also keeping track of the time I spend on this project. At the end I plan to calculate what the cost would be if someone had paid me to stitch this. I garuntee only the ten richest kings of persia will be able to afford it.

Along those lines of thinking I told josh last night that once I was done I would deserve a nice piece of jewelry. He agreed. Excellent...

I do wish that I could work longer on this piece. I'm really enjoying it so far. The colors are great and much of the detail is half-cross stitch so it's going quickly right now. Oh well, it will be done soon enough. And i'll be able to work on other projects without guilt. I really need to pick it up on the needlepoint. Hell, i'm not even half done with Josh's needlepoint stocking and mine is still in the package. Of course I told him that it could take a few years for me to get it done.

On that front I finished Butterflies in Blue on Sunday and last night I started Butterfly Drama which features a Monarch. (You have to say it like The Monarch! on Venture Brothers.) These are going into the kitchen which has a bit of a butterfly theme. I've had them forever and just finished Butterfly Surprise last December. You can see how quickly I get distracted/little free time I have/really prefer cross stitch/just plain forget about things, take your pick. I do have two frames coming from Ebay so that will motivate me to finish up the third butterfly for the kitchen.

On that note, I finally found some fabric I think i'm going to try and make a valance out of for the Kitchen. It's the same fabric as Abigail's bedding that I bought on Ebay. The fabric was from Wal-mart on only $2.88 a yard. I think i'll also get some to make a purse from a pattern included with a dress pattern. And i've found a free pattern online for a wrap skirt for an American Girl doll. Maybe i'll learn to sew yet.

But anyway, that's the craft update I suppose. As always I have big plans. We'll see what happens with them.

What does this say about me?

Today I have my yearly tune up. Now for those of you not familiar with what this entails for a woman, i'll basically be propped open and swabbed.

Considering that the doctor has their head right close to your legs during this task most women won't go to this particular appointment without shaving their legs.

Not me. Not only will shaving mess up my waxing, but I really didn't feel like it last night.

But you know what I did shave?

My underarms.

This appointment also includes a feeling of the boobs and I would be mortified if my pits were hairy. And as a doctor I would probably be grossed out by armpit hair on a patient. So I shaved that. But not my legs.

I rationalize this by saying that my leg hair is very light and fine, and it is. But what does it say about me that leg hair gets a pass but underarm hair doesn't? Maybe it just means I should never go to France.

So about that election.

I went to vote on election day because I was too lazy to do it early. It worked out in my favor though, I had no line at the church where I vote. I tripped on the stairs going up into the fellowship hall, but the election volunteers were talking to each other and didn't notice. Once you've spent your formative years getting teased, picked on and having food thrown at you the expectation of that behavior doesn't leave you. It was only after I righted myself and went inside to get my ballot from the very nice ladies inside that I realized that had they seen me fall, they would have asked if I was ok, helped me up and probably complained about that first step needing some yellow paint.

I marked my ballot, made my oval for Obama extra dark, fed it into the ballot eating moe-sheen and went home for a nap.

I expected nothing that night. The last two elections i've voted in have gone on into the wee hours of the morning so I resolved that this was like an early Chirstmas. I would wake up in the morning and get a brand new president or the same old crap from the last eight years. I guess McCain would have been like getting socks and underwear and Obama was like a shiny new wagon or American Girl doll.

I honestly thought that Obama would win. On our way home from our anniversary dinner Josh and I had a discussion about our surprise at McCain being picked for the Republican nominee. I mean really. Really? This is your best choice? The guy plenty of Republicans don't really like and only became an official Republican a few years ago to add President to his list of accomplishments? (But I can't really complain too much. Fuckabee might have run and he might have won and my uterus would no longer be my own.) But although I was pretty sure of Obama's victory I was scared to say it out loud. As much as I value science and proof in all things I also believe in things beyond our knowledge and really didn't want to jinx the outcome. (Yes I know this makes no sense. I'm a human. Humans are complicated. Deal.)

ANYWAY...

Eleven o'clock rolled around and went in the back to kiss Josh goodnight. He looked at me and said "It's over."

"What's over?"

"The election. Obama won. It's mathmatically impossible for McCain to win at this point."

"Oh. Awesome. Good night."

Again, I had basically counted on Obama winning so it wasn't much of a surprise for me. I put in my earplugs and went to bed.

Now this is where things get weird.

Around two o'clock I woke up to Josh in the bedroom asking me if I had heard anything. Well now. I was asleep with ear plugs. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Josh came in again and told me that he was chalking it up to the cats knocking something over.

Dude, don't care. Sleeping.

Then Josh went to go smoke.

He came back in the bedroom and asked if there were any real pumpkins outside.

Uh, no. If I had a real pumpkin it would have been carved in front of Josh as we watched various Halloween specials. But Josh somehow didn't remember that and was confused by the sudden appearance of pumpkins and just had to ask.

At this point I just took my ear plugs out, and put some clothes on. After all Josh was wide awake so why should I be asleep?

Turns out the noise was the glass in our screen door falling out of the actual door frame. What could cause this to happen? Try a pumpkin. A pumpkin that was, I can only guess, thrown at our door, knocking the glass out, then busted against the edge of our porch below the kitchen window. There was a second pumpkin in my flower bed/weed garden that had not been busted up for some reason. Laziness? Fear of being found out? Being really, really stoned? Who knows.

Now if this had been Halloween night I would have shaken my fist at the young whippersnappers that did this and gone back to bed. But it wasn't. And just to be safe we called the sheriff's department.

A very nice deputy came out and took a report. He checked the back yard and made sure our tires hadn't been slashed. He seemed as confused as we were. I mean, it's not like you have to go far in this town to find someone with an Obama sticker on their car, if that was their motivation. I was the only one left with Halloween decorations up, but why would they complain about that by making my place look more Halloweenish with pumpkins?

I just don't know. We've not had any other problems and I still feel quite safe. The biggest complaint was not having the glass in the door so we went in and out of the empty frame for a few days. That was a pain in the ass.

But I know when I get to heaven my fist question to the Lord will be "What was up with the pumpkins that night in 2008?"

And they Lord will reply "They were stoned teenagers."

Excellent. Awesome. Very Good Indeed.

The Wizard's Quilt

I finally finished The Wizard's Quilt, the companion peice to Dragon's Quilt, both designs by Dragon Dreams. Once I frame them the Dragons will be over my night stand and the Wizard will be over Josh's. Just in case our bedroom wasn't geeky enough with the stacks of Adult Swim DVDs on the tv, the Wall-E comforter on the bed and the DS Lites on each night stand.

And you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait.....

A few things that were scaring me this Halloween weekend

How awesome all my dolls looked dressed up for trick or treat! Abigail's mermaid costume was $26 very well spent. She could have been going as a clothed Venus di Milo.

The fact that McCain may still win this election. Shudder.

The number of children who stuck their hands into my candy bowl and tried to get more candy AFTER I had already given them their allotment! Greedy little bastards.

The fact that I woke up Sunday morning, went to Wal-mart and found a large Christmas tree up at the entrance and "Angels we have heard on high" already playing.

The fact that my immediate reaction to this celebration of the birth of my Lord and Savior was "Oh jeez, not already."

The fact that I then purchased a pair of Christmas earrings, a small star to go on my doll's tree and spend a good amount of time perusing the outdoor decorations wondering what I could add to the display this year to zazz it up. You know, since it was already out and all.

The fact that 5% of voters in NC were undecided as late as yesterday. Make up your damn minds people!

Most scary of all though was the amount of money I mailed off Friday to pay bills. It was so much i'm surprised that I didn't wake up Saturday to the sound of my own screams. Of course it could have been scarier. I could have had no money to pay bills at all.

So, about that tire...

I left work last week with my nearly flat tire, drove very carefully to the car place down the road from our house and pulled in. I explained my problem and the nice man looked over my tire as I backed up slowly and declared that it didn't have a nail or other object in it so all he could do was put air in it. Fine. After getting some FREE air I went home and took a nap.

A few days later (Sunday to be exact) I noticed the tire was low again. I planned to leave work Monday and go to the place that Only Does Tires (and rims, and inspections and oil changes, but they have Tire in their name, so that's like their specialty) and have them look at it. Josh's theory of tire leakage was that the stem needed replacing and that is where the leak was coming from.

I tried on Monday to get to the Only Does Tires place and failed due to a terrible traffice jam that frustrated me so bad that I gave up and returned to my office to wait for Josh. (Our work schedules are weird. Three days a week he's here but works later than me, the other two days he's at the community college and also works later than me, but is home for a short period during the day. He also teaches two night classes. So yeah. Effed up schedules.)

Tuesday I tried again taking a different route to avoid any traffic and actually made it to the tire place. I dropped off my keys and sat down in the waiting area with the only decent magazine in the place, a Time from mid-September. And as lame as this was I was just happy that the waiting room TV wasn't tuned in to Fox News. (Really, what is up with that? I can't go in a waiting room these days without a fucking TV blaring and it's always, always set to Fox News. How about something neutral like Animal Planet, or The Weather Channel? I know i'm in NC but fuck, we aren't all right wing maniacs. And some people are annoyed and depressed by the news and don't appreciate having to hear/watch it while waiting to find out the results of your colonoscopy. Or here's an idea, how about no TV in the waiting room? How about we all just look through old magazines or read the book we brought or play Tetris like we all used to do before someone decided to start sticking flat screens every damn where! Jeez! Can I please wait to see a doctor/dentist/vet/mechanic/or shop at Wal-Mart without some flickering box hanging around? )

ANYWAY...

The TV in the waiting area was small and was running a looping DVD about car maintenace so it was easily ignored and kinda quaint and charming given the other waiting rooms i've been in recently (see above rant). So I settled in to read about the financial crisis and the election as it was a month ago.

And then this college girl came in. And of course she was on her cell phone.

Now I like my cell phone. It's convient and the long distance is cheap as hell. But I also like not being an asshole. So as a general rule I don't have conversations on my phone in public. And conversations I do have in public I keep short, quiet and discreet. I don't answer my phone when i'm with someone else unless it's probably an emergency and then I excuse myself first. I basically try not to act like a boar. Or like the girl who joined me in the waiting area of the tire place on Tuesday.

First of all she called everyone she knew and told them about how she failed her inspection at Jiffy Lube then had to come here to get stuff fixed that Jiffy Lube couldn't fix and planned to go back to Jiffy Lube to have them re-inspect her car. She also asked everyone she talked to about their plans for Halloween and if they wanted to tailgate with them on Saturday. (Two constants in a college town: tailgating and a big Halloween celebration.)

Now this was annoying enough, but then she called someone else and after the Jiffy Lube Inspection Drama Story and the Halloween/Tailgating plan making she apprently learned that the person she was talking to had a convesation with Mary mother of Jesus because the rest of the conversation went like this:

"What did she say?

"Tell me!"

"Tell me!"

"Come on, tell me!"

"Tell me!"

"Tell me!"

And it went on like that! Over and over she begged this person to share the secret of the fucking universe with her. At least it had better have been the secret of the universe as annoying as she was about hearing it.

Just as I was about to snap and stuff her head first into the soda machine I saw a man come back in with my keys.

I jumped up and half-ran to the counter anxious to get the fuck away from this idiot and her cell phone.

As I was paying the man I asked what was wrong with my tire. (Remember the tire? The whole thing that started this?)

"It had a nail in it."


And that's when my brain turned to toothpaste and leaked out of my ears.

The end.

Victory is Mine!

I win! I win! I win!

I don't loose, I win!

First place at the fair!

Victory screach!

WHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Mini Manners 101: Can you say Thank you? Apparently not!

Ok people. This is first grade stuff. I don't know how your Mama raised you, but MY Mom raised me to say Thank You!

Let me back up.

I work in a renovated building on campus. I don't know what this building was like before the renovation, but I know that now it's a labrynith of halls, elevators that only go to two out of three floors and no helpful sinage AT ALL. Seriously. We have signs for what offices are down what hall, but no idea what department or organization those offices belong to.

So at least once a day someone stops by my office and asks how to get to so and so's office, the financial aid office, the advising center, etc. I tell them how to get where they're going and I resist the urge to charge a dollar for my services. (If I did this I would be well on my way to paying off a credit card right now.) And often the lost person will say thank you. Even if they aren't quite sure about my directions they say thanks.

But not the girl who came by today. She was lost, and I told her how to get where she was going. She seemed confused. I repeated my directions in my happy cheerful helpful secretary voice which I always use with strangers I encounter at work. She continued to look confused and just walked off.

Uh, you're welcome?

Now i'm not trying to be an asshole. But i'm not paid to give directions. It's something I do because i'm nice enough to help out if asked or if I see someone wandering around looking lost. I don't like reciting my How To Get To Financial Aid speech five times a day. Especially when I have to do it because the dumb fucks who renovated this place stopped caring when it came time to order signs. But I still do it. I do my best, and to my knowledge the people I direct get where they're going so is a Thanks too much to ask before you walk off? After all, you did interupt my work day, and sometimes i've been interupted while doing actual work, but with a smile I still told you how to find your advisor's office so squeak out a Thanks you miserable clod!

Thanks. Thank you. Not hard. Not hard at all people.

I won't even start on the topic of thank you notes. I will say that I went to two weddings last fall and over a year later have not seen a note from either couple and this makes me kinda pissed. Especially since one of those gifts was one that was hand made by me. But i'll stop.

So keep in mind as you go through life that you are owed very little. And when someone does do you a favor, no matter how small, you owe them a thanks. And if you skip this little courtesy then I hope that someday you end up in a glorified cube with a person talking to themselves on one side, a person using their speaker phone on the other and a rude git in your doorway wanting to know how to get somewhere just as you were about to leave for that off site three martini lunch you need really, really badly.

Not that i'm holding a grudge or anything.

Population Tire

The tire was checked out and didn't have a nail in it (this time). So the nice man filled it up with air and sent me on my way. So problem solved I guess. Unless it deflates again.

Two years

Josh and I celebrated our second anniversary the same way we celebrate most things. With dinner, drinks, gifts and then TV.

We exchanged gifts once Josh got home. His was still in the Amazon box, mine still in the padded Nature's Jewelry envelope. He liked his books and graphic novels. I liked my earrings, but was disapointed that my bracelet was backordered.

We went to Outback and had some mixed drinks, a fried onion and steak. My steak was square. I don't know why, but it was a square sirloin. It was also rarer than I would have liked, but not bad.

We went to Walgreens so Josh could buy me a card. (A repeat from last year when we did the same thing after leaving Red Lobster.)

We exchaged cards then spent the rest of the night watching Married With Children repeats he had recorded from TBS.

All in all a nice anniversary.

Oh yeah, BTW

Today is my second wedding anniversary. So let's try and get lovey dovey up in here.

One of Those Days Already

It began by Josh leaving this morning and not turning on the heat like I asked him too. And then I slept through my alarm and ended up getting up late, eating late and leaving late. Then as I sat at the light half way to work the guy in the truck next to me caught my eye. He was telling me that my back right tire was just about flat.

Fuck.

So I pulled into the gas station across the intersection. Air was $0.75 quaters only. (Remember when air was free? Or like a single quater? And remember the cents symbol? I miss that thing. It's easier than typing the dollar sign, zero, period then the amount of cents.) I had about $0.45 in nickles and dimes. So I went into the store to buy the Pepsi I was planning on buying at work anyway, getting cash back from the debit card, a dollar of that in quaters to feed the air moe sheen. But unlike every single debit card accepting establishment on Earth I could not get cash back at this gas station with the purchase of my Pepsi.

Fuck.

So I went back out to the car and weighed my options. Option One: Continue on to work and use the six hours there to come up with a plan. Option Two: Make three quaters somehow appear out of thin air, use the air moe sheen, proceed to work. I was stuck with Option One.

So I went on my merry way to work. Late, driving extra careful because of the near flat, and pretty annoyed at this turn of events. I'm also still coughing like a MoFo despite having finished my medicine and this coughing is being aggravated by the random junk that has accumulated on our heat pump's heating elements over the summer. So I can be cold and not cough as much, or I can be warm and cough my ass off.

And I just realized that since I was in a gas station and not on campus I could have purchased my preferred Coke instead of a Pepsi, but my brain was too scattered to realize this and now I have a too sweet for me without ice Pepsi to drink instead of a not so sweet on it's own Coke.

And it's only 10 am.

Fuuuuuuck.

I rly are sick.

You know how on just about every TV show and movie ever made that involves a woman in labor she looks to the man who knocked her up and screams "You did this to me!"? Yeah, I did that this morning. Only instead of screaming I sort of croaked it out through the swollen, mucus covered thing that was once my throat.

Yes, one bad thing about being married (or to be fair, cohabitating) is that you pass germs around like a fat joint. Or a jug of wine. Whichever. It seems that having a sick person breathe on you for eight hours as you share the same bed isn't the best way to prevent getting their cold.

So here I am sick and going to get sicker as Josh gets better. It never fails that once he starts to improve I start to come down with what he had.

My most fervent hope now is that this will give me some immunity or resistance to the various viruses that will be floating around campus for the next four or five months. No wait. My most fervent hope is that this will give Josh immunity or resistance to the viruses that his students will be carrying around for the next four or five months. Why? Because Josh is possibly the most annoying person on earth when he's sick. As much as I love him, when he gets the sniffles he acts like he's being disemboweled and I have a very short fuse for that sort of thing. So for his safety and my sanity I really hope this is the only illness that visits us this Fall/Winter.

On the up side of things, my very large American Girl order placed during the Samantha Panic of '08 is due to be delivered today. I should be excited, but mostly i'm still pretty pissed about the whole "archiving" thing. I still intend to post a rant about it, but i'm trying to come up with something that doesn't involve 90% swearing, threats of violence or references to flaming bags of dog poo.

Onward, Upward and Always Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom!

Well, I finally did it. I stumped Dr. Studwell. I broke his brain.

Wednesday I went in for my follow up to see how the Vyvanse was working. The answer is not very well. I've had some improvement in my wakefullness at work, but not enough to justify how high my heart rate was.

So to see if any thing was interfering with the meds blood was drawn and checked for thyroid problems, kidney and liver function, a complete blood count and glucose level.

Normal. All of it normal.

So from here he's sending me to a nuerologist. I see them on Wednesday. I'm a little concerned that i'm effed up enough to need a nuerologist, but i'm also hopeful that he will finally be able to help me.

So onward, upward, past the next star and straight on til morning.

Product Slut: Prada for Women

I first got wind of Prada for Women from my Vogue magazine. Literally. I could smell the insert wafting from the pages. And I loved it.

I still love this perfume. It's my fancy perfume that I wear for special occasions or when I need a little boost to get through the work day. I still have the box. I don't know why, but the cloth Prada label on the box is very cool to me. This is the only perfume I keep in my drawer so it will last longer (light makes the oils break down and can change the fragrance) eventhough I have other perfumes that I like on my dresser. This one is special. Mostly because it's pretty damn expensive. But it's very worth it.

I'm not a perfumer so the scent is hard to describe in a way that would make sense to people familiar with perfume. I call it sophisticated and exotic. The high notes (what you smell right after you put it on) are citrusy and floral. The middle notes (what you smell wafting up from your boobs at work) are deeper. The Amazon description includes scents like bergamont, patchouli, sandalwood and musk. I think that's what the middle notes are. They aren't over powering and are really warm. The low notes (what you smell as you take your shirt off to get in your PJs) are mostly vanilla and little of the musk. It's a great scent all day long.

Of course this is just me and my opinion. You may hate this stuff. So try it out before you buy. Perfume reacts differently with each person and their body chemistry and you may hate what it smells like on you. Before adding this to my Amazon wish list I bought a very small trial bottle. Like microscopic. The thing is an inch long and didn't even have an atomizer. I had to dab it on with my finger like in olden times. But I loved the scent and I still have that tiny bottle. I use it as my travel bottle.

So I heart this perfume.

There is one more thing about this perfume I have to share.

I put this on my Amazon wish list a few years ago and hinted strongly to Josh that a gift of perfume would be nice from him. I actually didn't hint. I told him that his parents were always the ones to buy me girly gifts and he should buy me something girly like jewelry or perfume and that I had added these things to my wish list for him to choose from.

So we opened our Christmas gifts and the perfume was not among it. Darn.

Then we spent Christmas night with Josh's parents and opened gifts from them. And sure enough his Mom and Dad had bought the perfume for me. And that was ok because Josh's Mom was really, really sick with Pancreatic Cancer and that was her last Christmas. She had told me the year before that she enjoyed buying girly gifts for me because Josh was an only child and her mom and the rest of the extended family were practical people so she never got a chance to buy girly gifts until I came along. So her last Christmas she was able to buy me something girly and fun like she couldn't do for the rest of the family. So that's another reason my bottle of Prada is special.

So if you like exotic, sophisticated, warm fragrances or if I tugged on your heart strings just enough there, try Prada for Women. It's a perfume I really enjoy wearing. (And Josh likes it too.)

Even my Stamps are Geeky

Bearded clams

No, this isn't about what you think it's about. It's about how you NEED to watch MTV's True Life: I live off The Grid.

Now I thought this episode would be about the survivalist weirdos that scare the crap out of me because they spawned Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kyc...The Unabomber. But no. This episode follows two young people who go to live for 11 months in the woods as part of the Teaching Drum outdoors school. (Or something. I do know it was Teaching Drum. Google it if you're interested.)

So the two people are Derrik and Ginny. Derrik is a self righteous prick who hates himself for living in our society for so long. He explains this as he drives his SUV and smokes a cigarette and drinks a soda. No, really. Derrik is the kind of person that gives tree hugging hippies a bad name. He's soooo much better than you because he doesn't want to drive that SUV or live in a house or do any of those conventional things even though he does do them. But he doesn't want this sham of a life! So the only way to make peace with himself is to go to this outdoor school and learn to be the mountain man he is on the inside.

Ginny is much more tolerable. She actually seems sort of nice. She just graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and wants to go to woods because she's also a hippie who doesn't like the artificial things of the modern world. She is much more genuine than Derrik, if a little naive about things like chemicals in toothpaste. (Chemicals are bad! Uh, no. Every physical thing on this earth is made up of chemicals. Even the weird organic toothpowder you're using.)

Now I know what you're thinking. Why would I want to waste an hour of my life exposing myself to more people who are generally insufferable?

Because of the clams. The CLAMS!

You'll have to watch to know what i'm talking about (or find it on YouTube or MTV.com) but it is so worth it.

What else is worth it? Checking in with Derrik after he pusses out and leaves Teaching Drum. More comedy gold right there.

So if you have an hour and True Life: I live off The Grid is on watch it. You will not be sorry. You will want to make hot sweaty love to your house, your toilet, your water heater, your refrigerator, and any other stapels of modern life you are partial too. And you will know the secret of the clams.

The CLAMS!