And We'll Keep Trying Until We Run Out of Cake*

So you know that little voice in your head that sounds suspiciously like you're mocking your mom by using all of her words and wisdom against you in your head in your voice? You know, the one that berates you for walking around the cold kitchen floor in bare feet? Leaving the apartment without a heavier coat? Giving you the big stink eye and a heavy sigh when you take a spoonful of ice cream directly out of the carton, even though its all yours and no one else will be having any? Same goes for when you eye the milk jug because really you only need one small sip to get an aspirin down?

Yeah, that one.

As I was taking my third dose of sudafed + ibuphrophen just a wee bit ago (hellllloooo sinus infection!) that voice just about screamed at me, letting me know that the caramel flavored popcorn I had while watching Out of Africa this evening with my work mates not only did NOT count as dinner, but was most definitely insufficient padding for putting that many chemicals in my tummy at 9PM...(let's not even touch the fact that I just took SUDAFED at 9PM),

So I may have added a piece of cornbread I had lying around, cuz yeah that is SUCH a well-planned and healthy meal...And where did all that come from? I mean, that whole, "we must eat real food and not the bag of chips we're eying." Is it really all guilt driven?

And by that I mean, I totally got it when I was a teacher that I was the adult in the classroom and I had to TAKE CHARGE (tm) and be a good example for my students and and not swear or use violence to get my way and show them that just cuz you grow up the world does not end and look! I even eat healthy lunches! See! Apples! And, you too can be a well-mannered fully functioning adult in the world and not get arrested! And it wasn't guilt, it was me feeling like I wanted to show...well, what did I want to show? That this is a good way to be living?

But when you're almost thirty-seven and you eat lunch alone in your cube and there are no little people in your house to which you have to show how awesome you are...what is it that compels me to cut up my apple and eat it with my yogurt and maybe a turkey sandwich when the avocados are on sale? What keeps me from eating the whole pint of ice cream for dinner (instead of that one spoonful for dessert)?

Why not bake a cake and eat it straight from the pan morning, noon, and night? Is it because of that voice? Because of the guilt I would feel if my mom found out about the fact that I had caramel popcorn and a piece of cornbread for dinner tonight? And even though my mom is going to live forever and ever and ever (shut up, let me live in my delusion), what would happen if she wasn't there for me to fear being discovered?

Gak! It's like my mom (or that voice-thing I've got going) is my morality, or some-such. This might be far too much to contemplate when my head is threatening to explode into a million pieces, but there you have it. "Right" and "wrong" as policed by fear and guilt. Oh, and maybe the little promise I made to myself that I would not "grow" out of my favorite pair of jeans...that might have a little be to do with it too...so add a little vanity as well.

Wow, not really where I expected this post to go. But if you get a chance? Watch Out of Africa...it's a bit long, but watching it as an adult in one-go instead of as a kid with your mom over two nights on teevee? Whole different take and whole lot of meaning. And Robert Redford is only a smidge less than a year younger than my mom...that kinda totally blows me away.

*My geekiness knows no bounds, especially not when cake is involved. A face-place friend recently became super addicted Portal, and seems to be passing the time until Portal 2 comes out by posting many Aperture Science related wares...most recently the end-song, which mentions cake, often. What's not to love?

Waiting Really Is the Hardest Part

As I was waiting for this to upload into blogger I was trying to remember if I've actually finished any sort of project in 2011 yet...

- I was 3/4s of the way done with a sweater....it's now back to being hand-wound cakes (WAY TOO BIG).

- I was 9/10s done with Andy's sweater...all of that yarn is currently wound around a notebook waiting for me to get it back into cake-form (way too not Andy).

- I am a toe away from finishing Lev's first sock (of two. But not a pair, he just wants two socks...makes this VERY easy for my failing enthusiasm for the knitting of a millllion stitches for his Mens size 10s (11s? Can no longer remember....ooops--which is why I stopped at where I think the toe might be...and started the second sock instead....)

So that would be um, no. Nada. Only by baby brother's xmas scarf....which I don't think I shared on here either....my thought was that it was an xmas gift and he might see it! (If he ever found my blog...which doesn't seem to be the case as yet, unless he's reading all stalker-style, which is okay too. I stalk his FB page all the time, hi mijo!)

But um, yeah, this was December 2010:

Cascade 220 superwash....size 7 or 8 needles (useless with the memories here) in purple, cuz that's the color he asked for. Good old basketweave stitch with a...um...what's that k1p1k1 edge/border called....moss stitch, maybe? One thing I can state as fact? It's possibly the fastest full-sized scarf I have EVER knit. It's 60" long, mas/menos. I was asked for this scarf after the first of December, and mailed it with everyone's xmas presents. Yes, it might have gone into the dryer after I realized that there was no way it would be ready to go in the box along with everything else. Yes, I did actually wonder if I could pack it in desiccant (no, not the wee little packets you find in nori, I'm talking about the cereal-box sized stuff they sell you at craft stores to dry out your flowers), but I trusted my never-hot-enough dryer to do the job. I chose superwash for a number of reasons, see.

Okay, guilt of not posting that is fading...

But the above? Secret project that I've been doing when not cranking out the itty bitty stitches required for Lev's socks. US 7 needles are a godsend to uncramp my fingers after an hour of size 1s. (Yes, I have not learned my lesson and keep using the itty bitty needles for men's socks...they just last longer that way, really.)

But now it's blocking/drying and I'm back to waiting....It's made from Regia Silk sock yarn. I bought the yarn five years ago when I went to Bellingham, WA to visit the "Santa Cruz of Washington State." I'd tried making socks with it (imagine, silky socks?) but the yarn is way too "halo"-y. It's the silk part, I'm guessing. So instead, I saved it...and now...it's almost ready. And I'm trying so very hard not to chuck it into the dryer (machine wash/tumble dry right on the yarn label!!!) so that it can be a my first fully-finished 2011 project...

Out of Sorts...

You know that adrenaline feeling you get when you are startled awake by earthquakes, sirens, gunshots, small crying children, ginormous diesel machinery breaking apart the street (or something similar) two blocks away from me? (Guess which one I had happen...)

So now you're all AWAKE and OMG is it really only 4AM!!!

And you know that thought you have? The one telling you maybe it'd be better to get up now? I mean you're so awake? And yet the bed is so warm, you are so comfy, there's at least a hour and twenty-five minutes yet before you need to worry about getting up/listening to the annoying deetdeetdeetdeet of the Community Transit bus and slowly but surely the heaviness in your eyelids makes the decision for you? And you know in your heart of hearts maybe this wasn't the best thing to do? Like that time you decided to "study" in bed, under the covers for that Biology final?

Because then? THEN! It's an hour after you were supposed to BE UP? Because you've slept through your alarm because you fell into such a coma-like sleep after the startled premature wake-up that your entire sleep-schedule now seems to be ruined?

Yep, that would be me this morning. I've pretty much finished my one cup of coffee and it had done nothing for me. This will be one very long Friday.

Oh Dear...

You know that awful feeling you get when you realize that the notes you scribbled onto your stickie notes pad at work for your next blog post are actually not in your jacket pocket but possibly still somewhere on your desk? Maybe in a place where someone will read them and wonder just what insanities are really going through your head and maybe bra sizes and imaginary lasers attached to your glasses are not the most appropriate things to write about in an accounting department and did I mention insanity? Combined with why do we let this person handle our money?

Yep. That feeling.

It's just awful isn't it?

Instead I will distract myself and my mounting hypertension with a cup of chamomile tea and this lovely picture I got of the shadow of the Smith Tower...whose pewter rendition is in the previous post. The pyramid/triangle (in 2-d) portion is actually an apartment. The walkway where I was standing is at the base of the triangle.

Happy Sunday!

When it Rains, It Pours!

Happy New Year!

Yep, a bit belated. The first 14 days of the year have been kinda rollercoastery in the fullness department.

Seriously, I think I had the awesome luck to be otherwise occupied just about non-stop the first 7 days in very happy ways. Visits to friends, invites to dinners, birthday celebrations, etc. and so forth. I was all coordinated with work and social calendar and times were awesome and good...

Then last week hit, and I was at work until just near 8 PM for too many nights in a row with all deadlines being 5PM yesterday and dear lord am I happy to see the end of that week.

And now it's the Saturday of a three-day weekend and I'm typing this from bed, which aside from going out to get a burger for lunch? Is the only thing I've done today...and this makes me immensely happy.

Oh wait, I lie, I actually stepped into a bookstore on my way home from lunch to complete my niece's birthday gift (eight...EIGHT, she's got to slow down! I'm so not ready for her to be EIGHT!). She wants to learn cursive, but the closest thing I've found is a cursive practice book. I'm hoping they still teach cursive at her school and this can be something extra...but I keep hearing that's no longer in fashion...which is kinda sad, but not really.

I mean, I gave up writing cursive years ago...summer of 8th grade to be most precise. It was not "cool" to write "just like the nuns do!" Or so that was the comment that stuck in my head. I was in a study skills course the summer before starting at my high school and we had to write something...who knows what the actual assignment was, but after 8 years at my elementary school with the constant insistence from various teachers that my writing looked like horrible chicken scratch when I printed anything and that I could only fake "neat" handwriting when I used cursive, I'd be damned if I was going to be labeled a messy writer at my new school!!!

So I painstakingly wrote out my multi-paged paper in cursive. Only to have the girls in my class eye me rather warily because OMG Becky! Who writes like that? How old fashioned! Her writing looks like Sr. HolyWater's! (We were all products of Catholic schools, the big difference, apparently, was that they had recently been taught by them whereas I'd had Ms. T. Except she'd been a former nun, hadn't she...hmmm.) This was still a bit of time earlier than I was DRESSING like them, so I was caught between a nun and a chicken scratch place. I chose to squawk from that point on. And 22 years later it seems to still be affecting me.

I was supposed to mail off my niece's gift on Friday, or so I'd planned, but then (see working until 8 PM above), completely spaced it as I slept through my alarm and rushed rushed rushed just to get out the door before my first meeting of the day (you know, that makes it seem like I have an important position at my place of drudgery, don't you believe it). And then, as I realized my lack of present to mail when the outlook reminder started flashing (yes, yes I do remind myself to mail packages, go to the pharmacy, take a lunch break, don't you?) that I never got around to looking into the cursive book.

"Cursive!" I thought...and laughed out loud a little as I lifted and shook my fist! It really had been a rough week. But after confirming with my SIL that I actually had four more days than I'd thought to get the present down to LA, I breathed a sigh of relief and stickie-noted a reminder to go to the bookstore today.

I may have a pile of laundry that I'm totally ignoring, but I feel like today has been a total win from that little accomplishment. It's amazing how 7 days of awesome were so decimated by 7 days of awful that on day 15 I'm calling this a big win. Oh 2011, what will you have in store for me this year?!?

And just so we won't have a total pictureless blog, I've been playing with my camera again:

During my end-of-the-year vacation I visited the Smith Tower as well as picked up a replica of the needle...and now I may be on the verge of starting a pewter building/monument collection! Good thing these aren't as popular or portable as those stretched penny machines, and that I don't actually go anywhere ever, or we'd have a problem.

Another Year Gone...

So, 2010 was not my year for blogging, I know this. But as I am also not that good with the "year in review" or the "resolution making" or even much reflecting, I'll just leave it at that.

Every year is different. This one had so many things going on, most times all at the same time, that finally when I had time to sit and share...it was such old news and already competing withe "the next thing" that I'd give up and delete the draft I'd half-started. I have a super awesome grand appreciation for all the bloggers with families. How you do it I have no clue. I am shocked and amazed that I can get myself up and dressed and fed and to work some days...and it's JUST ME! You all rock, is all I'm saying.

I have no plans for 2011, aside from trying to keep the noise at a tolerable level. But that's always been my hope. Less stress, more time for me....more time to share.

You know it's taken me this long to go through and organize my vacation pictures from November? And this is due mainly because I promised a HS friend I'd get her the pictures? Seriously, with purpose, and forethought, and motivation! And hello a month and a half and I am still getting them ready to upload to flikr, or wherever. "Wherever" being more sought after as I don't seem to have a clue as to who or where or how I signed up to flikr...so when I asked for my password...that spiffy email they send? Not in any of my inboxes...

See? Sample of my insanity lately. It's like I've fallen off the disorganization tree and hit every branch on the way down. (Does that twisted analogy work?) Can you tell when I write lately I'm all stream-of-consciousness/one-take? I used to do this with letters back in the day, you know, before computers? Before hours and hours and a click of a couple keys could reorganize whole paragraphs and no one could tell you wrote a page and a half and then deleted it when you thought better?

I could say I'm doing the Kurt Vonnegut thing, he was all about the writing one sentence at a time thing and not going back...except I'd be lying as I just thought of that this very moment. It's more that I missed that era of my writing.

We're so good at self-editing now-a-days that no one sounds like who they really are anymore. I do it all day in emails and calls for work, but lately also for facebook comments and even phone conversations. I really and truly I feel like I've lost a little be of who I am/was. I titled this blog tactlesswonder for a reason...as a place for me to share and get it all down and out and...well...I stopped that. I started pouring over my prose to make sure everything was "just right." That everyone and anyone who came across it would see I'm not a danger or a threat or an offense. And I'm not sure why.

So I stopped. Blogging became more than a 10-15 minute update, it became WORK. I do enough of that already.

So maybe this is me making a resolution of sorts, except I started it this year instead of next. I'm posting what I'm doing/thinking/being from-the-hip. Short and sporadic updates seem to be my thing now, but they are me again. Or so I hope. I feel like I'm trying to find my "voice" again, and like my aging body and it's molasses-style of healing? It's slow-going. Slower than my patience is happy with (what patience? where? did I miss something?...)

SO! Everyone! Thus ends another year! I hope you spend it in the company of wonderful friends and/or family (or both for you lucky peeps). May the new year be filled with lots and lots of hope and positive thoughts and a boatload of motivation and wishes and unicorns and rainbows and anything else you can throw in the mix.

Happy New Year's Eve! I will clink-clink to you now as I'll probably be snoring by the time the date change happens...not that I snore! Girls don't snore...or something ;).

Like Getting Blood Out of a Turnip

Or so I hope....

Dear Con Artists,

I know by now Lost has probably been translated and parsed out to a multiple of countries but I'm going to say this now, what worked for Sawyer will not work for you. We've all been getting the million Zambian dollar emails for years now, we know better, really, so please stop trying to take my parents' money!

I understand how hard you've been working, what with them not being a part of the Internet generation you've had to take extreme measures and (gasp!) CALL them on the telephone, but still, really and truly, they are not so gullible (thank god) to believe that they have just won a thousand dollars!!!!!

And as old and hurty as they are? No, they will not gather up $200 cash to give you when you send them "magical" medicines to cure their ills(!!!).

And lastly? fake Mexican relative that just got into an accident and they will be sending you to jail unless you get wired $1000? Say hi to your new jailmate rommie, they didn't fall for that one either.

And really, fake Mexican uncle? You are the one I'm most offended by. So offended I'm writing you a letter! On teh internets!

You've got a big brass set to go calling someone out of the telephone book, I'm thinking, and introducing yourself by saying, "Hello! Who do you remember from way back in Mexico!" When you heard my mom's voice answer the phone (in Spanish, of course). And how UTTERLY convenient that when she said the first name that came to her head, that name was your name too! SHAME, dude. How many numbers did you have to call before you got someone to speak to you and/or answer in Spanish, I wonder...

And then! THEN! John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, going on and on about how you were just finished filling the tank up with gas in Tijuana and were a mere few hours away and couldn't way to see her again!!!! Her, not your brother, but your sister in law? Really? And when she said your voice sounded nothing like her BIL you had the gaul to say it was because you had the flu?!? Cuz why? You thought maybe they were so soon off the turnip truck that they didn't know that these wires and tubes and electrical devices transported your voice so clearly that it's almost like they're in the same room with you? Hi, it's just shy of 2011 here boy-o, time to buy a clue.

Color me naive, but maybe I'da fallen for it too, just for a second, after a few Manhattans. Thank you jeebus that my mom doesn't partake of the fire-water. Instead she said, "Well, okay, see you when you get here," without having shared her name and address AND letting my dad know (you know, your brother? the one you didn't ask about?) that something was afoot. Which was a good thing when your SECOND call came, the one wherein you got into that accident and now "waily waily" they want to send you to jail because the driver's little girl got smashed into the windshield! (There is a special hell for such creativity you know.) And can your wonderful family send you the money before they haul you off to Mexican jail!?! (I'm guessing, seeing as you'd just called to say you were in TJ.)

Props to my dad for being equally creative, speaking to you telling you how sorry he was but "carnal," totally tapped for money due to the mint and a half he spent during xmas (see referenced turnip comment above).

You failed in your effort to extort money from my parents, but what you did do? You bastard? You upset them. You put doubt into them about what if it was him? What if we really didn't recognize his voice? What if he really is in trouble? A few phone calls cleared that up, but the damage was done, you ass. If anyone has earned the right to upset my parents, that's me, not you! Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Dude, I'm a firm believer in both Karma and bad juju and with the ferocity of bad feelings I'm directing your way? You'd just better watch out.

Sincerely,

Your Loving Niece

I Couldn't Resist

My love of Neil Gaiman + my twisted nature = sharing Nicolas Was with you all.

39 Degrees North: Christmas Card 2010 from 39 Degrees North on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas!

I'm As Bad as My Former Students...

I go on vacation tomorrow for the rest of the year (I know, it's only a little over a week, but it sounds much more fabulous to say "rest of the year" vs "one week" you know?)

And I don't want to go to work today.

I doana wanna! How poopie. Who invented work anyway! (And whateverallelse my students were prone to say on the last day before any holiday/break/summer vacation.)

But I am an adult! Or so I keep reminding myself...and I need to finish the tasks I've set out on my cube door (we have frosted glass "doors" on our cubes for "head down" time which I found out preeeetty early on - day one? That you can write on with dry-erase markers. I know, I am a dweeb, but it gives me a place to write my agenda like the old days...or something...)

Anyhow...just popping in to say I'm still here, maybe drowning in work a little, but it's okay, see above re: vacation. ONE MORE DAY!

I can do this.

Xmas Shopping Blows

Last night at the holiday party a co-worker's wife asked if we all did the "holiday" thing.

Living two blocks away from the "downtown shopping center" has reminded me just about daily since "Black Friday" what I hate about that same-old holiday thing. The daily emails telling me how much I'm missing out on all the discounts for all the shopping I'm not doing is not helping lift my "spirits."

I did put up the mini metal xmas tree-shaped ornament holder my friend gifted when she was packing for Australia. If it were a teensy bit taller it would be a much better way for me to display my FULL SIZED ornaments...but it's not, so it kinda looks a bit Jack-Skelington-style Xmas instead of what I pictured...but um, whatevers, it's the thought that counts, or something. And at least my little ever-greenie plant thing isn't bowing under their weight this year. (In a more Charlie Brown Xmas Tree style that pulled at my heart strings just a little too much last year.)

The holidays bring me down in a odd way. Thanksgiving is the beginning of the end. It used to be the last time that we could all be happy about getting together for a big meal and not be blasted by the ads and commercials and nonsense of the capitalistic nature of the US (my Santa Cruz is showing, sorry.) This year, though, it started in July...

Color me naive, but that whole "Xmas in July" thing had absolutely NOTHING to do with getting together with friends and family and being happy to be together and spend time with the kids and play and laugh and eat to excess...it was all about buying stuff. Because buying stuff is supposed to make us all happy! (These people need to watch an episode or three of hoarders, I think.)

What really got to me was when I was in LA last month. When the tee vee was on, it was commercial after commercial after commercial for toys and widgets an gadgets that you had to have to make this holiday special...um, this was a week before Turkey Day. What happened to waiting until Black Friday? I'm just being one of those old folks who go off about "back in my day" here, aren't I?

I guess I'm just holding a little pity party for myself as I have to go brave the crowds to find a birthday gift for my nephew, as well as visit Hay See Penny's for the very specific thing my mom said she'd love another pair of (gramma jeans, my mom wants gramma jeans...sigh, and people wonder just how I developed into the fashion queen I am :).).

How do people do non-xmas shopping during this time? I'm already strategizing which grocery stores I will be limited to as anything connected to any shopping center's parking lots will be prohibitively full by 8AM...and I don't know about you...but that's just not my cuppa tea either.

Flannel Sheets Make all the Difference

Color me jaded by silly things like forced air heating, and too many visits to the linens section only to exclaim, "Really? That much for flannel sheets! Are they threaded with gold or something?"

I am a changed woman.

My mom lives in LA, and as wonderful visions of Baywatch and Melrose Place or 90210 fill your vision, as well as that stand-by there is no "weather" or "seasons" there…not like Minnesota (or wherever your family is from), well, no, not really.

But as with all places, the people who live here have definitely acclimated, and like my girls in Hilo that used to pull on those super big and fluffy sweatshirts when the temps got below the constant 85 degrees, so to do the Angelinos prepare for "winter" as best they can by pulling out the various sweaters and jackets and ugh boots and flannel sheets once the months ending in "ber" come along.

And I have to keep reminding myself, really, it is a desert. It might be expected to get up to 80-some-odd degrees today, but it starts off at the "high" that Seattle was seeing all last week…somewhere in the steady 50s.

My mom seems to be a non-identified participant in the "Heater Wars" that I read other bloggers are having with themselves…her thermostat is busted, so she warms the house exactly the way it was warmed when I was a kid, turn on the stove/oven and start making breakfast.

So I might have gone to bed last night thinking, um, really? Flannel? But At 5:30 this car-alarmed filled morning (oh yeah, I've heard 4 already…welcome to East LA?) I'm snuggling in my sheets wondering why I have been depriving myself of such a obvious utter necessity.

The Wonders of Modern Technology

I am typing this on my lappy at the gate to my flight.

Yep, this is still a new thing for me, having access to the 'net when not ensconced in the (relative) safety of home or work. If I ever get a smart phone, I think my brain might explode at all the possibilities I'll have at my fingertips.

Of course people around me are smirking a little as they do their surfing/blogging/facebooking on their little devices of doom. Yep, always a generation behind. Not caring all that much, really.

So, somehow I finished getting everything ready to go before midnight last night. I KNOW!

As usual I probably over-packed...but it's a sickness really, my inability to go under-prepared. Were this a school or work-related thing, it'd make sense. Rely on me, I will have the extra pen, a copy of the agenda/extra copy of the document, notes to that Chemistry class no one bothered to listen in. I am the person people come snag ibuprophen, tissues, even eye-glass cleaning supplies from (it was a free sample).

Turning that switch off when traveling? Worse, when traveling allbymyself? Impossible.

So now my back might hurt a little as dragging my not-so-carry carry-on and backpack through a million miles of airport corridors (why does my flight ALWAYS leave from the furthest gate from the check-in point??). My hope is that I'll only need half of what I'm bringing.

There seems to be movement...next stop, LA.

I Think I've Mentioned The "H" Word and Packing, Right?

It's that time of year again.

The temperatures are dipping to a lovely 50-ish degrees, I'm wearing some knitted creations that I probably haven't blogged about...and I have to figure out where I put my shorts and would sneakers or my Birks get less attention at the airport...

It's my yearly trek to LA. You know, in November, when temps are finally down to the um, 80s.

I leave on Saturday, which is coincidentally my dad's b-day. I might bake him something if their kitchen isn't in the 90s. Hmmm, just mentioning that makes me think it might be a better call to actually go out and find the necessary sugar, you know, to appease the gods...and my need for cake. (Cuz, yeah, it might be his birthday, but HELLO, all.about.me. :).)

I am procrastinating even going to work as my shower thought this AM was, "Hmm, maybe I should pull out the suitcase this morning...." Yeah, so here I sit, just having KNITTED on my SWEATER (the one I mentioned, I dunno, a year + ago?) instead of actually doing anything which might involve the "P" word.

As long as I pack my mac and a credit card, I'll be fine, right? I'm going to LA la land after all...

I'm sure there is a support group out there I should join.

You Take a Month Off....

of blogging that is, and not quite a month...there's days to go before I hit 1 month exactly.

Excuses, excuses. But no one to blame but myself. Shocking! I know!

So here is a funny...Blogger doesn't seem to want to play nice with Chrome. Seeing as they are both a part of the Google conglomerate is yet another reason I should just buy the iPhone and get it over with :).

Not too long ago I celebrated the re-releasing/25th anniversary of Back to the Future with what felt like a room full of teen-aged boys:

Seriously, I looked around the theater and realized I was one of a very few women who have fully accepted their geek natures. Ah well, I also fenced, also not your average sport for a girl who grew up in SoCal. Regardless, it was a blast!

See, I do do stuff, even if I don't post about it.

The Worst Part Is the Keeping Quiet

At 3AM? Seattle is silent.

The first Community Transit bus does not show up to the courthouse until 5:30AM, or so. Which is why my alarm is set for 5:25. I hate that deet deet deet deet of the bus, it's way too fast-paced to wake up to, and you can hear it from pretty much anywhere in my apartment.

But at 3AM? On a Tuesday, mind? There isn't even a hum from the I-5.

Unfortunately, the uber silence makes even my getting up to pee sound like a cacophony, so instead I just lie there, hoping that whatever started me awake, FULLY awake, would let me go back to sleep for another two hours and 25 minutes.

Did. Not. Happen.

Too dark to read, too dark to write, too quiet to turn on my lappy, and too damned awake to go back to sleep. I wish I could wax poetic about how the city of Seattle wakes up; the echoing sounds of hard heels on the concrete, the hustle and bustle of the service folks runny to and fro and here and there...but I live at the edge of South Lake Union, my apartment overlooks the federal courthouse...when this place gets going? It's all at once, you know at around 5:30 when the first bus discharges 20 to 30 people at a time (they are HUGE double-long monstrosities) and all of a sudden there are engines and bells and whistles and people everywhere.

Which was finally my signal to get up and start the day as well, instead of playing tag with my snooze bar as I tend to do, daily, when I am allowed to sleep more than 5 hours.

Dude! FIVE HOURS. I know, a luxury to some, but I know me, and we are not happy with less than six. One, MEASLY hour...and yet its the difference between my being able to take what the world flings toward me...and my biting you, hard, because I can.

Yes, I will not lie, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that I am always only a few hours of sleep and a meal away from being one of the, um, odd folks on the streets of Seattle, but as GI Joe taught me, knowing is half the battle.

At least I have a load of laundry going in the dryer and it isn't even 7:30AM.

Bigger, Badder, and Way More Yellow

So, here we are at the very start of the walk:I don't think, at least not on Andy's cell phone, a picture exists to show what I looked like at the end. This lack of documentation is probably best for all parties concerned.

We were doing pretty good, I think. We were somewhere in the middle of the sea of people at the start, but due to the fact that Andy, just past mile one, had to, ahem, "use the facilities," (and by no means did this translate into "honey bucket" or "porta-potty,") my friend Ann (in the sunglasses and equally yellow tee behind me) and I were racing to keep just ahead of the ambulance and patrol car that actually ended the walk.

Andy was nowhere in sight for most of the second half of the walk as, it seems, the coffee shop he'd ducked into, I'm not one to name names but let's just say it rhymes with Sully's, refused to let him use their WC unless he bought something. He had been planning on it...but not BEFORE using the bathroom as, um, hello? Would you go into a public MEN's bathroom holding your latte (or whatever?) eeeuuuwww please don't answer and let me continue believing you'd have said, "nuh uh."

So he sought out a more humane and just plain decent coffee shop, rhymes with "meets," where they were quite happy to let someone doing the AIDSwalk (hi, blinding yellow t-shirt clue enough?) do their business before giving them business. And yey for them some more, they even gave him a dollar off for being in the walk!

Anywho...I finished, which, as I said before, I was not actually sure I was going to be able to do. By the end my shoulders were killing me, so I spent the rest of the day either napping or resting or just plain not doing anything that required much walking or arm movement...and today was a little more of the same but maybe mix in laundry cuz, yeah my hip is sore, but not incapacitated, which is all I really hoped for, because dirty clothes wait for no man...or something.

So, yey for the human body's ability to heal!

Now, this could, theoretically, kick-start me into doing more walking...but I'm going to hold off on making any promises until I'm past the dreaded and much feared "day three" of any overly strenuous activity. I'm fully in that group of people that are happy-go-lucky until the magical 97th hour when their body finally realizes that whatever was done to it three days prior was really really bad and is going to get back at them for it.

Not so much yey for the human body's ability to age...

We Shall Shine Like the Sun...

So, AIDS walk. That's still today.

I've been stretching and practice-walking with my sneakers and everything. I think I wrote about how I am such the epitome of cool in my last post...nothin' like rockin' the sneakers with work clothes, oh yeah bay-bee.

But honestly? I'd rather not mess up my knees as I'm trudging around trying to make it to a mile a day (failed most days, but not for lack of trying...see chicken pox update below.) Today will be interesting to see just how far I can go...if I knew where my pedometer was, I'd take it...I seem to have misplaced it and a wee little (dirty) tupperware container that I'm sure will come back to haunt me sooner than later.

I know I've reached uber-stressy proportions when I start losing random shit. Which makes this walk all the more necessary. Even if I don't make it, it will force me to just concentrate on walking, and nothing more. Maybe (oh please) just maybe, I'll be able to clear my head of all the static.

Except maybe I won't be able to concentrate due to the BLINDING nature of our team shirts. They are definitely YELLOW. Dear lord in heaven above we promise we are not trying to mock how bright the sun is, really, it just maybe seems like it because of the particular shade of SUNSHINE YELLOW that the CFO decided upon. I will try to get a picture, but I'm packing light. I found I cannot stand to have anything across my shoulders for ANY amount of time just now...again, see below for more details, so I'm going to ask one of the peeps with a smart phone to do the honors.

And the Chicken Pox Vaccine Update:

It started Monday. I could have sworn I had the flu. My brain was so foggy I couldn't figure out a simple excel table that I had created.

I think I may have actually creaked with how stiff my joints were. And then it just kept getting worse. By Wednesday I could barely walk to work. 800 mgs of ibuprophen at a time are the only thing that kept me moving as I was more afraid of staying still and then NOT BEING ABLE TO MOVE EVER AGAIN, than hurting a little as I maneuvered about.

I actually went home EARLY and, was it Tuesday? The days seriously ran together. I slept for 12 hours straight. Got up, was good for 3, then came home again and lay down and, seriously, started wondering which of the "dangerous" side effects I was having...the ones I'd have to go to the emergency room for...the ones that ended in my not being alive anymore. And I may have cursed the makers of the vaccine, a little. Obviously? I've gotten better, a little.

The running theory is that as I was obviously immune to the chicken pox, having gotten along fine for 36 year without ever having them, even after being exposed to them countless numbers of times...) injecting myself with the actual disease is just plain crazypants! My body HATES me now and is showing it to me in so many ways on so many levels. It's saying, "This, lady, is what you get for TRYING TO KILL US!"

Or something.

So! I'm going to attempt to walk the Seattle AIDS walk circuit today in my blazing yellow team t-shirt and see how far I get. Cuz you know? I may not be taking a camera, but advil? Oh yeah, that is essential.

Well, It Is Still September...

Quick update, mostly because I'm just not in the mood to dwell.

My father...is still alive. I've kinda given up on the whole...well everything. I'm just there to listen to my mom and give her a place/person to let it all out to. We are preaching to the choir here. How many different ways can you say exasperated about someone who STILL BELIEVES he is hurting no one but himself with what he does. Moving on...

Chicken Pox Vaccine Shot 2 of 2 was Friday. Having been through round one, I thought I was all in the know about what was coming. Except the pharmacist burst my bubble by saying that the second shot is almost always never the same experience as the first. Even if it is was created from the same batch/set of poison, it's your body that is reacting to it in so many different ways....so I got a fever and in the middle of moving boxes, the ITCHIEST ARM IN THE WORLD....the injection spot had swollen up like a TB test, really. It looked scary and bad and my friends gave me ice and told me to sit down and maybe it was time to quit for the day... So more on the saga of cure-worse-than-the-disease as it comes up.

I feel cursed...I feel like everyone I've gotten semi-close to at work, like even almost hang-out-and-get-drinks/food-post-work...has left, is leaving, or thinking about leaving work. Some to more extremes than others, hence my moving boxes in the previous paragraph. But she's moving to Australia to go take care of/spend time with her mom during her cancer treatments. But I do feel like telling the other gal I've been hanging with about my curse so that she is forewarned. I'd be fearful about her thinking I'm a big weirdo, but um, yeah, that's not exactly secret knowledge.

Especially after the Avatar thing....cuz you know I had to go see the extra 9 minutes in IMAX 3-D at the Pacific Science Center, no less. I'm also not ashamed of saying so, to my coworkers, who are still trying so hard to be cool...um, we work in the accounting department. NO ONE will mistake us for cool. Ever. I've embraced this aspect. I mean, think about every movie, tv show, book, short story, novela, you name it...that has mentioned an accounting department. I know, I know, life of glamour and excitement. It might be an age thing. I am one of the more, ahem, mature, peeps in the group. I've outgrown the heavy black eyeliner and doc martins and way too much black in my wardrobe (well, maybe except for that last bit), but they maybe still want to be hip-hop super stars...or something. Whatevers.

I've signed up to to the AIDS walk next week...I hope my hip will take it. With the weather playing Indian Summer vs Thunderstorms, all my old injuries are acting up. This too is something my coworkers don't get...but that whole "sports" thing is something only one other in the group has done...though not to the extreme (sailing to Hawai'i) I did. So the injuries? Not so much. But I need to go do some stretches and maybe a little more breaking in of the sneakers I've chosen. If you're out there, my group will not be hard to spot, our CFO has decided on the YELLOW with red lettering T's for our "team." Good thing I'm not a fashion maven, but I am busting out my yellow socks to match! (And if we look like Team DHL to you too? We've already told him so....good thing he has a sense of humor.)

Everything All At Once...

-Or-

Why I'm glad it's finally September

When I last posted I was a happy-go-lucky/life is pretty boring/this is your thirties kind of lady. My biggest worry was wondering when the bruise on my arm would go away (still there for those of you keeping track.)

Had it not been for the official email from HR letting me know I was promoted, I think I'd have been looking for the hard-reset instructions for August.

Seriously, the month started pretty well, I got to see the uber-hyped Inception (good movie, but in my head I've already re-written it to be smarter...so meh, the important part was that I got out of my rut and went to see a movie! In IMAX no less!)

But then? There was that chicken pox vaccine thing, that pretty much affected what all I did for the rest of the month (and part two can be taken any time after this weekend, yey, sooooo looking forward to that...oh, let me wipe that sarcasm off the floor, sorry, I must be dripping.) 10 days of being worried if I was going to break out, which made me break out in other ways instead; days and days of feeling just plain sick; the whole "my body is toxic" feeling; ending with the latest: MY BODY IS TRYING TO KILL ME.

It helped a whole lot that I had friends "making" me go out, celebrating birthdays, and generally keeping me from sinking into a malaise that I was totally denying, but all that kinda fell apart when my dad ended up in the hospital.

Was it heat stroke? A heart, um, what do they call them when they don't want to say "attack?" Yeah, one of those (like when they never call it "cancer" even after they've lopped off your breast? Exactly.) Maybe a panic attack? I'll know more after he has his official cardiologist appointment. He's had enough mini doctor's appointments so that he's been cleared to go back to work, but the fact remains that he is not well.

Not that he's ever been. Hello, alcoholic? His spell in the hospital may have tuned him in to the fact that if he is ill to the point of requiring medication? OR hospitalization? Alcohol will be missing in that equation.

My hope of all hopes is that finally, at almost 65, this is the wake-up call that he needs, that, maybe? Just maybe? He can finally learn to get along with the world without having to fall into a drunken abusive stupor nightly. I mean, hi? How can I and, (and I'm just throwing a number out here) MILLIONS of others do without wrecking our heads and bodies nightly? And yeah, maybe we party it up on the weekends, or more like once a month (okay, maybe every two months in my case...oh all right, maybe three), but somehow, even when there might be "one too many," the need to drink myself stupid ended back in my college days. Yeah, okay, there were a few months there during the divorce...and yet, I think he was just revving up his tolerance in his 30s. Don't even make me try to calculate how much he goes through in a week.

Of course there is the other side to this...either he stops taking his new sets of pills (for sure one is for his blood pressure, my mom didn't fill me in/and bad daughter that I am, I didn't ask what the others might be), or just reaches a new level of slow suicide and kills himself by drinking AND taking his medication...but I've decided to purposely play stupid and avoid that train of thought for now...work with me.

Did I mention sooo happy it's September? Like a new month is a new beginning, or something. If I hope it hard enough will it come true? If my blogging on a 3AM is any indication of the month to come...I may have to wish harder. (No, not up all night...woke up from a nightmare filled sleep and being unconscious just does not seem all that inviting.)

OW, My Arm! And...The World is So Small

Again, for those who might need to have a chicken pox vaccine, I relay my experience thus far:

So I didn't fair so well the first week or so after, like I'd been hit with the flu stick. Then came the sinus headache that I contained with my usual ibuprophen + pseudrophedrine hydrochloride (I do not make enough money to buy the brand names, currently). Little did I know that the ibuprpophen was doing double duty!

About day 10, you know, also known as "The Day of the Lesions" (if they were to show, that is), I rolled over to get out of bed and OH DEAR LORD IN HEAVEN, what sin am I being punished for now, because my left arm HURT. It seriously felt like something had taken a bite out of the "wing" that I'm developing back there (a whole 'nother blog post entirely). There was what looked like a red circular burn-welt just about where the PIT (pharmacist in training) had jabbed me...

But it was early...before coffee....so I did not immediately put two and two together, oh no, first I ran over to Andy and was all, "Did you do this? Do you remember me smacking the back of my arm last night? Do we have spiders?!?!"

And my arm got worse and worse as the day went on, with the little circular welt swelling quite nicely into a big fat arm feeling...every time I flexed my wanna-be girl muscle, or even, you know, just bent my arm, I could feel the skin stretching back there as it hadn't since the aforementioned "wing" appearance. (Seriously, NOT the best gift my body could have given me for my 36th birthday, no way, no how, wings? Where did those free weights go?)

Anywho...I think it finally hit me the next morning, after tenderly exploring the area, that there was a definite BIG OWIE feel right where I'd gotten stabbed with virus 10 days previously. But dude! 10 days! I went to the pharmacy (it's across the street from my work) just to verify that I wasn't going to die from an ever increasing swelling that stemmed from my arm.

Nope, that's just what fat does when it's "fighting back." Um, what? Yep, peoples, I was informed that, you know how hard it is to lose weight? It's because fat is much stronger than we give it credit for. Hello! It is currently fighting off a chicken pox vaccine! Most likely by swallowing it up and making it into a pocket of nasty!

Because I dunno if you've ever lost a ton of weight as you crossed half the Pacific Ocean on a 32' sailboat, but when I did? I was sick ALL THE TIME, to the point where I begged a doctor friend (I know! Me? Voluntarily go to a doctor for advice?!?) to help me figure out if I was allergic to the Island or something! Oh no, he said noting I was about 50 lbs lighter than he'd last seen me on the mainland, I was basically suffering from every cold that my body, or rather, the fat in my body, had fought off by, um, surrounding it and sealing it up in the fat cells. (i.e. SWALLOWING it up...tasty sounding, I know.)

Yeah, I left thinking that maybe doc had had too much pau hana on the brain (we were in Hawai'i, it may have been Friday....) but here was a Seattle-based Pharmacist (not in training) telling me the same thing, sort of. This is why we get all sicky feeling when we're losing weight, yeah, there is the lack of food and fun stuff, but um, also as the cells are giving up the ghost? They are giving up the nasties that they stored inside them.

This insight does not make me happy as I am almost (not quite, maybe next month) determined to start losing the weight my last two incapacitating bike accidents have piled on...especially since I can finally walk a mile without my hip hating me for a week (or seven). It's hard enough for me to say, g'bye 15# of love and comfort, g'bye an extra 5 that snuck on when I wasn't looking (ice cream, I'm looking in your direction)....but now I might be reliving some of the uber nasty Hilo and Tahoe colds and flus I thought I'd seen the last of?

And worse yet, I'll be showing these viruses to a whole new set of people who may have never left their home state. Ah the human body and it's more bizarre aspects...sure does give a whole new concept to the small world aspect of the universe.