Nerdy Book-Loving Girl

It's been awhile.  I'm completely exhausted.  I'm moving again at the end of May.  I have a job, I don't remember if I've mentioned that.

Honestly, I kind of don't care about playing catch-up right now.  Probably because I've had 3 hours of sleep and I work 1-10 tonight.

I'm alive, I gave up on The Scarlet Letter and Mrs. Dalloway and whatever the hell else I was trying to read.  I'm currently reading Lord of the Rings, and it's actually really good.  There's a few parts that you really have to be awake for or they sort of slip by you and you have no idea what you just read because you mostly stared at it and turned the page, but other than that, it's excellent.  I keep running across words I don't know that Tolkein didn't make up, and I don't have a dictionary and I'm usually at work when this happens, so I may never expand my vocabulary at this rate.  In any case, I'm almost done with Two Towers and am making my way steadily to The Return of the King.  It's a one-volume book I got out of the library, since I was having issues finding Two Towers when I started getting close to being done with Fellowship, and so I switched to the one-volume set, and hope I didn't miss anything.

So, I'm supposed to go with MB to her friend's house today to do laundry while she dog-sits, and we're supposed to leave in about 5 minutes and she hasn't even taken a shower yet, so we might not be going.  Hopefully the dogs don't poop inside or anything if she's late.

Edit approximately 30 seconds after I clicked publish: MB is now in the shower, hahaha, so apparently my thoughts were a catalyst or something for her.  Heeh.

Anyway, my birthday was yesterday and now I'm 25.  I'm going to go get coffee and hope that I get to take a nap before work.

The Slob Who Reads a Lot

I am alive.  (Obviously.)  I am in Emporia.  I am about to go to bed.  Apparently, the best I can do is declarative statements at the moment.  I have a library card, a job (which I haven't attended orientation for, which makes me nervous), and I have other big news that I hope I'll remember to post about later.  It deserves its own post, both so I can shit my pants over it and squee incessantly.  I am currently reading (or rereading): Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve, and The Stand (expanded edition) by Stephen King.  I've already read Angels & Demons, but I haven't seen the movie yet, so I wanted a refresher on how disappointed I'm going to be.  I read 9 pages of Pride & Prejudice before I gave up a few days ago, further cementing my need to just own the book so I can read it like I read 1984 - pick it up every few months and read a chapter or two.  Of course, I haven't touched 1984 since 2006, but it worked for The Hobbit - it took 6 months to read, but damned if I didn't do it.

Things are looking up.  I'm terrified.  I'm on the edge of some (more) huge changes.  I don't know how I feel about this and how many I'm ready to accept, but I'm working toward something different.  I don't know if it's better, but it's different.

I miss everyone like crazy. 

My belongings are everywhere because I never pick anything up.  I have two binders, a blanket, two canvas bags, a bathrobe, various purse innards, a newspaper, a notepad, a sweater, and mail on the floor near my feet right now.  Oh, and four library books, and that doesn't even count the books I seem to have misplaced.  (I was attempting to read Mrs. Dalloway again.  I got as far as I did last time.  I just can't seem to follow it.  It's somewhere around here.)

Things I seem to be good at accumulating, now that all my stuff is in one place:

• Pens with varying levels of ink.
• Odd batteries.
• Shoes.
• Books.
• Purses.

I am odd.  I am tired.  Good night.

The Cluster-You-Know-What

It's been forever since I posted here.  I suck like that.  Honestly, I haven't felt like dealing with it on top of everything else.

I wound up moving to Joplin, Missouri to stay with a friend.  She told me almost nothing about the true living situation in this house, so I walked in totally unprepared to discover the state of it.  The bedroom I sleep in with her daughter and her roommate's daughter always smells like cat pee because one of her cats won't stop peeing in there, and there are now 7 people living in this tiny house, which isn't much bigger than J and S's house.

The worst part was that she didn't tell me exactly what kind of bug problem she had.  She told me they only came over when people moved out of a duplex down the street, because she was ashamed of it and so she lied to me about it.  If I'd known the extent, I would never have come here.  I am basically phobic of roaches, so for the first 3 days I was here I did nothing but cry and have anxiety attacks.  My skin has been crawling for days, and I'm terrified I will find them in my hair.  I almost want to shave my head and start over, but I know a lot of the itch on my head is psychological.

So I'm moving to Emporia in two days to live with H, which was the original plan, before I changed my mind because this place was made to sound so much more stable.  Unfortunately, it's very, very not stable (more on that after I get to Emporia), and I can barely function in this house.  The only thing I want to do is not be here.  I can't even shower without being afraid I'll find one in the shower with me.  I'm only eating in the evenings because I hate going into the kitchen and I'm afraid to touch any of the food or dishes, so I'm only eating enough to get by until I can get the HELL out of here.  And oh god, one just appeared on the couch next to me.  *shudder*  If things continue the way they have been today, I may have to go to a homeless shelter or something with my stuff until then, or I put myself at risk for a huge backslide on the self-harming.  Upside, I've completely stopped biting my nails because I want no part of this house in my mouth.

H is being wonderful about this.  I have to abandon my dresser here because I don't want to accidentally bring the roaches with me, and she's offered to buy me a new plastic one to keep my clothes in, and she's going to take anything that might be hard to decontaminate to a dry cleaner to get that fixed.  I've already applied at 4 different places, or maybe 5, I forget, and hopefully someone calls me very soon.  Definitely looking forward to that.

I miss everyone at the house so much.  I even made a collage desktop background for myself, which I'm going to completely overhaul when I get to H's and have some free time after we determine if my computer is contaminated or not.  Woo.

Anyway, maybe I'll write another post later, but right now I have to go.

Ballszilla!

I went to work two hours late (sanctioned) because I didn't get hardly any sleep last night, and today still managed to be tedious and long.  Woo!  I stood out there for an hour and a half this evening before I went home and absolutely no one would take a survey.  And the ones that agreed didn't qualify for a survey.  Goody!

While I was at work today, S had an equally long day rearranging the entire living room by herself.  Crazy woman.  It's pretty great, actually.  I'm now on the other end of the couch and in the corner by the windows, and I really dig it.  It feels sort of fort-ish.  Ha. Anyway, she did an incredible amount of work, and between that and digging out a bunch of clothes that were by the bed in the bedroom, she definitely kicked ass today.  Go S!!  Also, she found my other ballet flat I've been missing for four months that I swore up and down was under the couch.  It was under the couch.  And she found a shirt I've been missing for almost a year, so I'm really excited to get to wear it again.

I'm attempting to catch up on the laundry, since now that I'm working, it's not really getting done and everyone is out of clothes.  Joy.  Sometime in the next few days I am going to have to go through and sort all the laundry so we can have J take it downstairs and we can start getting it all washed again.  It's Mount Laundry in the hallway for now, though.  Oh god.

I'm taking Girl Child trick or treating on Halloween, and I'm all excited because I get to wear my glow in the dark Toy Story shirt and have it actually GLOW.  Yesssss.

While I was sorting the laundry out into what we need immediately tomorrow and what we can wait on for later this weekend, I got confused about some shirts, because S and I trade shirts around a lot.  (We both wear huge shirts when we're just hanging out at home.)  So I was trying to ask S about it, and I said her name, and she said, "Ballszilla!"  Because unlike a normal person, she greets people like this sometimes.  The hilarity was too much for me though, as it made me collapse laughing.  And then she yelled things like, "Floor!  Lamp!  Wall!  Dog!" and got great amusement from me laughing at this stuff.  I laughed so hard and for so long that I cramped my abdominal muscles and made my entire face hurt.  It was great.  She and Girl Child were sitting there laughing at me laugh silently, clapping like a retarded seal.  I love being here.

So today hasn't exactly been exciting or anything, but all in all a good day.  I'm too tired to write anything of substance, sorry.  If I could, I'd get all Link Round Up or ranty or some shit, but I'm just too exhausted to put a coherent sentence together.  I may do a picture update sometime soon, though, because I need to perform a camera dump very, very soon.  It's completely full.  I've got pictures dating back to April on that thing.

I'm obsessed with playing Solitaire on my iPod lately.  I don't know what to make of this.

And now, laundry!

I Am Bitchy Tonight

Well, I finally got to the point where I'm about to start mentioning even more new people, and I had to create a spreadsheet (Okay, a table in OpenOffice!) to keep everyone straight, since I don't use identifying information on this blog.

Today was kind of a busy day.  I'm really starting to not like RP very much - I liked her okay when I first started working at CAR (pseudonym!), but I'm seeing more and more that she's not a very nice person.  She sucks up to Boss a lot, and is his pipeline of information on what happens when he isn't there.  I don't like this very much (I can see why my coworkers at the fast food restaurant didn't like me very much), especially because she stole 3 different people out from under me today because she was being a competitive bitch.  CRN gave one of the surveys back to me, since I was the one who originally talked to them, and they decided to come back while I was bringing in someone else and talked to RP, who wrote her name on the screening sheet when she knew full well that it should have been mine.  So CRN gave it to me.  Woo.

Anyway, my other problems with her are that she's only 20 years old and has a baby that she isn't a very good mother to - she told me a story about how her son is so bad that when he was 9 months old, he said "bitch" and got spanked for it.  NINE MONTHS OLD.  What is this person doing with a baby, and why don't I have one?  I'd be a better mother than her.  And it's not like he said bitch, anyway.  He made a sound that sounded like it, while babbling, which is a thing that infants DO.  Christ on a stick, people.

One redeeming quality of RP is that she's stupid, so she agrees with everything I say, even bullshit.  Also, she thinks I'm a great singer, so it's nice to have the ego stroked a little bit, even if I know it's because she's an idiot with no life experience.

Anyway.  I'm starting to look for a better job, because I kind of hate this one sometimes, especially since Boss drinks on the job.  Actually, if he hadn't offered me the job on the spot, I'd have probably gotten a job with Old Navy, because they called for an interview on my first day at CAR.  Figures.

I think that's enough bitching about work.  Of course, I don't really have much to write about.  I had an idea for a story earlier, it just popped into my head, and I wrote down the one line that was in there, but I'm letting the rest float in my head for a bit before I put it down, because if it's actually good, it should stick.  (At least according to Stephen King.)  Maybe there's still a chance of me getting to write that novel I've wanted to write since I was a kid.  I would love that.

Anyway, I need to go and do stuff before I go to bed.  I have the house to myself tonight because J and S went to visit a friend of S's and they took the children.  Also, M is at work, so it's just me and the puppies.  Who are passed out on the floor.  I don't know how they are able to do that, since I've been really loud.  (I really love singing.)

Why is Coheed and Cambria so awesome?

Lunch Break Post

I made an error in my last post - the Toddler's birthday is not, in fact, tomorrow, but is coming up.  I should probably not write stuff when I'm tired.  Ha.

I'm at work on my lunch break right now.  I just found out what my first paycheck will be, and I'm so excited about it.  Part of me is a little terrified to spend any of it, in case this job doesn't work out, but I think it might for the short-term, at least.  I still haven't figured out who is going to be called what on here, and I don't have very much time at the moment to deal with it.  I'll work on it today, though.  Heh.

There really isn't much going on and my attention span is not the best at the moment because my blood sugar crashed right before lunch and I almost fainted.  Whee!  Also, my lunch is now over, so I shall be going.  I'm going to try to start posting more frequently again.

I May Just Die Now

Okay, so I don't know how the people with jobs have the time or energy to write anything worth reading.  I barely had the energy to make myself dinner.  Or the ability to get up and walk, for that matter.  I'm not kidding.  I spent four hours on my feet at work today, for the first time since I lost my job in December 2009 (when I'd regularly stand for 9-10 hours and be mostly fine), walking and shifting and reaching over my head and lifting heavy groups of hangers to bag orders, and that plus my decision to walk home (I was at the location within my perceived walking distance today) caused me to be unable to move around until about six hours after I got home.  I am not pleased with this development, and I really hope that my resistance to that kind of thing returns quickly, or I'm just going to die.  Maybe now.  Maybe I'll just fall over sideways onto the couch right now and just die.  Blah!

Anyway.. today I learned the Spanish word for stapler (es grapadora, apparently) and that you can get cramps in your knuckles.  I also learned that I need more pants than I currently have.  This whole owning only two pairs is not going to cut it for work.  Anyway, I worked for four hours today, and I've started helping customers for real.  As long as I stop forgetting that starch exists and remember to double-check the cash register when I close it, I think I'll be fine.  (My cash register training took less than a minute - I don't know how exactly to use the credit card machine, but I imagine I could puzzle that out myself if I really needed to.  I guess I'll find out on Monday.)  I actually really prefer the main store, where all the action is - it just feels friendlier, and I can walk there and back.  Please, scary boss man, let me have that location!

Today was also an excellent day at home - when I got home, S and the Toddler were outside because S was having a smoke, and you pretty much can't leave the Toddler in the house these days if you're going outside, because he will have paroxysms of grief over it.  It's kind of hilarious to watch (hey, the kid regularly gives me injuries, I'm laughing at him when he's ridiculous!), but it's really annoying to cope with, so he gets to go outside a bazillion times a day right now, and that works out well for everyone, pretty much.  Anyway, they saw me coming and he met me in the yard with a knee hug.  It was really, really cute.  After I went inside, I ate what was in my lunch box (I really don't need to pack a lunch for work - I never end up eating it, so I'm going to get grazing food instead) and watched Children of a Lesser God, which made me miss using ASL.  It also made me cry.  And I learned how to say "fuck you!" in sign language, which I'm sure will come in handy.  Haha.

J ended up waking up really early (about 4:30), and he wanted to get food, so S went to McDonald's for him, and the Toddler went along, and he almost climbed into his car seat on his own.  (I often put him in the car, so I've occasionally been asking him to try climbing in on his own.)  When they came back, I took him out of the car (S's hands were full), and I asked him if he could say my name yet, sounding it out for him very slowly.  And he said it.  Then he said it again.  And then he demonstrated for everyone else in the living room (Girl Child completely lit up), and then I used it as a form of bribery later when I was about to give him a bath - I told him if he said my name, I'd put him in the tub right then, and he immediately said it.  I'm pretty sure he knows that he's saying my name, S is really the smart one in that department, being his mother and all.  But oh god, what a rush!  Every time he says it, I just want to grab him and kiss his face off.  Totally made my day.  (Seriously, this is the absolute best part of my day today, and I mean that.  I would be more excited about him finally saying my name than if someone gave me $1000 right now.  Not that I would pass up $1000.)

Anyway, I played some FFX later in the evening, worked on my iTunes playlists some more (because I'm just never going to be done with the tweaking, I think), and then I had the idea to look up speech pathology, which I've been thinking about on and off for about 10 years now.  I think I'd like to become a licensed ASL interpreter and also get a speech pathology (or assistant) degree and work with deaf children and adults to help them learn to read lips and speak.  Maybe.  I've had a look at what you have to go through just for the interpreter certifications, and it's going to take me like four years just to get that, and usually a speech pathologist has a master's degree, so it's going to be a very, very long time before I get that, if I manage to do it at all.

Right now, it all kind of hinges on having a car.  Doing the math in my head, if I spend absolutely no extra money for about four months, I should have enough saved to get a car that runs.  Of course, Christmas is coming up, so I'll tack on an extra month for Christmas.  But in any case, I should be able to buy a car by this spring, and hopefully I'll have my permit issues sorted out so I can start driving.  (Though if I get the car and can't drive it yet, I'll just figure out how to make it be so S can drive it until I can drive it myself.  If she's agreeable - I haven't talked about this with her yet because I haven't had any prospects for getting money until this week.)

I can't think of anything else to say.  My brain isn't working very well - I'm really tired and I took two naproxen and a Zyrtec about half an hour ago, so now my brain is extra not working.  See?  I can't even make words be sentences.  But I'm off tomorrow, so I'm going to sleep a lot.

New Chapter in My Story

I don't have time to do that links round-up, so it's going to have to wait until probably Sunday.  In fact, a lot of things are probably going to have to wait until Sunday.

I'm going to begin at the beginning, though, just to be a horrid bitch.  Bwahaha!  Today, I slept in really late because I passed the hell out around midnight in the bedroom and slept through everything until I woke up in the middle of a seriously strange dream involving a mansion and a guy with thousands of ladies' socks stacked up in a gradient, so they made the entire color spectrum.  There was also a room with a ton of antique furniture and things and lots of old lamps and an old guy restoring them or something.  I don't know.  It was weird.  Anyway, between that and the company that was over bringing me further out of sleep, I was up for the day.  Woo!

The day was basically the exact same day as the last several, until my phone rang at about 2:30.  There was a man on the other end, the guy who owns the dry cleaner I applied at last Friday.  He wanted me to come in for an interview this afternoon, so after much frantic running about (since I was still in pjs and all), I was dressed and S drove me to the interview, which was very short - if S had known how short it was going to be, she would have just waited until it was done and dropped Girl Child at her friend's house after.

The interview was okay.  The guy was foreign, so I had difficulty understanding him sometimes, but he seemed really nice.  He really liked my typing speed (80-90 wpm on keyboards that actually work), and he didn't like that I don't have a car right now (I decided to avoid mentioning the lack of driver's license), but I'm smart and willing to work, so apparently he's willing to overlook the slight transportation snag, since...

HE HIRED ME!!!!!!!!

(If I could, I would make that part sparkly and dance-y.)

Anyway, so he told me initially that he would call me by the end of the week and let me know if I was going to be starting training or not (I've heard this before, that's usually a sign that they're not going to hire you at all), and we thanked each other, and I went outside to wait for S.  A few minutes later, I was on the phone with J, trying to figure out how long it would be before S came back, when he stepped outside and called me back over to tell me he had changed his mind and that I start training tomorrow morning at 10:00.  Holy crap. I have to ask for a certain woman at the location near the house when I get there and I will learn things and it will be awesome.

When S picked me up, she decided we needed to go to Long John Silver's and have some food, and there was much excitement (I talk ridiculously fast when I'm excited, too!), and we ate and the Toddler displayed a love of tartar sauce the likes of which has never been seen - it got him to eat his chicken, which normally doesn't happen.  When we got home, J was already in bed (he's been on vacation because his birthday was Tuesday), so after I got off the phone with C, I came outside and hung out with S and the Toddler for a bit, and we invented a new sport of walnut throwing.  Ha.

After we came inside, I waited until I was sure M was awake, then I went downstairs and unstacked all my totes in the basement so I could get at the clothes I keep down there that I don't wear very often - most of them don't fit right now or are things I don't really need to wear at the moment, like my heavy sweaters and my bathrobes, which are all shorty robes and make me overheat anyway.  Of course, I recently just switched my clothes around, moving the stuff that I only have for when I'm working downstairs and keeping all the fun clothes upstairs and also bringing up all my winter stuff so that I wouldn't have to worry about that later when it's actually cold.  Then, of course, I end up needing my work shirts.  Figures.

After I brought up all my work shirts, I did a quick fashion show for S so we could determine how many work shirts I have available to me, and as I was trying to get things moved around so they'd all fit (tiny dresser + a bazillion shirts = sad), I grew very frustrated with my complete lack of space - I have a small four-drawer dresser with a wide storage drawer thing sitting on top of it, which doesn't even begin to sufficiently hold all my clothes.  So I went back downstairs and got the other storage drawers, which is the exact same size as the first one, took all my crocheting stuff out of it (all 58274 projects) and dumped it all in a piece of luggage, hauled the drawers upstairs and perched them upon the first one.  I now have drawers reaching almost to the ceiling.  It's a little ridiculous.  I actually can't reach much above the top drawer in the first tote, so I will regularly need a step stool now if I need anything out of the other ones.  Woo.  I don't even care, actually, I'm just so damn happy to finally have room for all my shit.

Of course, this running around like a headless chicken (which is what S said about me on G+ earlier) caused me back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, shoulder pain, and foot pain.  And I've got a headache and I'm starving.  And I have to work tomorrow.  God, that feels weird.  I haven't worked in almost two years.  TWO YEARS.  That is a long time.  I'm really nervous and excited about tomorrow.  I hope like hell that I can sleep tonight, or tomorrow is also going to suck horribly.

Anyway, I'm really really excited.  And stuff.  Oh god.

Goodbye, Facebook

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything worthwhile - my allergies and my sleep schedule nonexistence of late have made it hard to do anything that requires actual thought.  So I've been spending quite a bit of time tweaking my iTunes playlist, reading news articles (so many links to share!), discovering new music, watching movies, playing video games, and crocheting.  Also, playing with Twitter.

Things haven't exactly resembled anything exciting here lately - same old, same old for the most part.  I don't remember if I've mentioned this previously, but I applied for a job with a dry cleaner in my neighborhood, and am still waiting to hear back from them.  I don't know if this means they found someone else, or if they lost my application among the many they probably received, as everyone and their mother is desperate for work right now, or if they're just taking their time deciding who to call.  I've been on tenterhooks for days, though, and am starting to feel pretty confident that they're not going to call, just like everyone else.  I wish I knew what I was doing wrong.

J installed the dishwasher the day before yesterday.  It's wonderful.  Everyone is so damn excited.  We had to have the power off for about four hours, though, so that was kind of a fiasco, but it's a fair trade for a successful installation.  Also, because S needed to help J with the install, I had the Toddler for a large chunk of the day, and took him to the park.  Of course this was the one hot day this week, and of course I got a sunburn and 12 mosquito bites, and a horrendous allergy flare-up.  I'm mostly fine now, though, except I get new mosquito bites every single time I leave the house right now, which is really lame.  I am so itchy!

This morning, I woke up to discover that Facebook made some major changes to the entire site.  I was already angry with them to begin with after their last "tweak" of the privacy settings, making it more difficult to set them the way I want them because I can no longer tell what some things are set as at all.  This makes me pissy.  Anyway.  I'm completely sick of the way Facebook is run, I hate everything about it, and I've decided to quit using it.  I'm in the process of getting a copy of all my data downloaded from Facebook, and then I shall be deleting my account.  I don't give a shit who's going to miss me.  That's what Google+, e-mail, and fucking telephones are for!  Not to mention that I actively use both MSN and Yahoo messenger clients (well, I use Yahoo for E's benefit only, actually), and the fact that I'm not hard to get in touch with at all.  So fuck off, Facebook.  (I believe S decided the same thing this morning, as did several other people on my Facebook friends list, so I imagine I'll be seeing them all on Google+ shortly.)  I've even found a way to make up for the stuff that I was following on Facebook that it is now impossible to follow with the new News Feed - Twitter!  So I'm using Twitter to follow Huffington Post and NPR and all the other stuff that I use to find the news articles I read, and will probably use Google+ to keep up with the people I care about.

Anyway, that's really all.  As stated previously, nothing exciting has been happening lately.  I'm listening to a really beautiful song by M right now, which is pretty awesome. 

Speaking of M, he saved my butt on Sunday.  I was already having kind of a bad day, and then my iPod got frozen while I was trying to force my computer to recognize its existence.  Like really frozen.  I couldn't reset it, turn it off, skip the song, hear anything, lock it, or adjust the volume.  I could literally do nothing with it.  M offered to take it with him to work, and I don't know exactly what he did (something fancy, apparently), but he fixed it within half an hour.  Of course, I didn't have access to it until Monday morning, but I was just so happy to have it functioning again that it really didn't matter to me when I got it.

Also, S and I discovered raspberry ginger ale.  It's a very happy, pretty shade of fizzy pink.  I will be having some with vodka later to see if that's tasty together.  I will be having some alone in a minute to see if it's tasty at all.

I hope that I get back to regular postings soon - I'm planning on finally writing that post about growing up Catholic and how I've always sort of known that I was an atheist, but I'm lazy, so here's hoping it actually materializes.  Also, I have an idea for a new story bouncing around in my head, but I think I'm going to let it marinate for a little while before I try writing anything down, since about half my stories are poop.  Not that I've ever finished one, except for this story that was six pages long that was about a little girl and a pond that I wrote when I was 19.  I've been thinking about revisiting that a little bit and seeing if I can tweak it a little bit, and see if I can revisit the same family after a few years have gone by.  Maybe.

Anyway, I don't have anything interesting to say.

Music Explosion

Last night I decided I was fed up with my music being so disorganized and began the endeavor of getting it sorted out and deleting stuff I meant to delete months ago.  Like my Enya stuff, which was a mess - I had six copies of the same song in some instances.  I've deleted about 1,000 songs since yesterday evening, when I started, and I've added probably about 150 or so so far, but I'm also still deleting.  Exciting stuff.  When I started, I had almost 4,000 songs, and I'm down to just under 3,000 now, ranging over the entire musical spectrum.  I'm fairly sure I don't have a single unrepresented genre.  Well, I was, but S asked me if I had any punk or Goth music, and I'm not sure I have any big band (because, dude, 3,000 songs), but I've got at least a small sampling of almost everything.  Obviously.

I've got access to my files from the other hard drive again, and I'm taking great advantage of this by getting everything off of it as soon as possible.

Anyway, the weather here is wonderful and cold and perfect.  It feels delicious and like cocoa and crunchy leaves and long sleeves.  Favorite time of year ever.

I've been working on a crochet project that my ex-fiance sent me (I left it in England with him because I thought we were getting married), it's actually the first granny square I ever made, which I made with a bunch of random scrap yarn I had, and I'm going to give it to S when I'm done, because she really likes the colors.  I'll post a picture tomorrow after I get the chance to take a picture of it.  This means when I'm working on it and the Toddler is in bed.

I'm about to go out and drop off a job application, and half the reason I'm so stinking excited about it is because I get to wear a long-sleeved shirt for once!  Okay, getting dressed and leaving now, so posting.  The Toddler is very displeased that we are not leaving immediately.

My Face May Explode Soon

Allergy season has kicked in with full force.  I can barely breathe and everything tastes horrible.  I thought I was getting sick yesterday, but now that the weather has finally cooled down, I am merely unable to breathe and not hot and itchy.  I am probably going to start sleeping between 9 and 16 hours a day, too, if last year's trends are anything to go by.  I spent most of August and September last year asleep.

Anyway, so I'm not terribly able to keep up anything like a posting schedule, as I'm generally in a hazy stupor.  So I'm doing a lot of reading, which has caused me to accumulate a large number of links.  So there's going to be a rather impressive link round-up at the end of this post.

Let's see, a whole fat lot of nothing has been happening this week.  I did update my OkCupid account yesterday, but that doesn't mean anything, as I'm not terribly sure I'm interested in using it.  I mostly updated it because I had nothing else to do, and it kept me briefly entertained.  Honestly, after that last guy from there, I'm not entirely sure I trust OkCupid - there seem to be a disproportionately large quantity of assholes on the site.  In any case, that's what I spent a good bit of yesterday doing.

It finally rained yesterday, bringing tolerable temperatures to the area, which is very nice.  I went and stood outside in the rain for awhile, and after it rained, Girl Child went outside to mess around and we found some snails, so I took a whole bunch of pictures of her holding them so S would finally have some more recent photos of her.  I also got some photos that are of just the snails and her hands, and got permission from S to post one, so here's a picture of a tiny snail on Girl Child's hand:

Woo for snails!  I am so glad she didn't try to make me touch it.

There's going to be a detailed photo of the snail itself on the Photo Gallery page, if there's any interest to see extreme snail-y detail.

Anyway.  Nothing exciting is happening.  I washed my hair last night before going to bed and woke up with a giant tangled frizzy fluffball.  I don't know how this happens.  Hermione keeps trying to possess me, but all she manages to get to stick is her damn hair.  Well, she can keep her hair!  Take it back!  Oh my god.  I've tried using the boar bristle brush to distribute the sebum to the ends of my hair in the hope that that would be helpful, but all that did was make it stand on end more.  I look like I've been electrocuted!

So, in other news, I received a call from E the other day.  I hope she doesn't mind me posting about this, but I don't think anyone she knows reads this blog, especially since her mother has me hidden from her news feed on Facebook because of my prodigious use of the word "fuck".  But I digress.

E was crying when she called me.  I already knew about this at the time that I posted about going to Topeka, but hadn't mentioned it yet, but since it's now a thing...  Anyway, E had her doctor do the genetic test for breast cancer.  I don't know if he did both BRCA1 and BRCA2, but she is at risk - most of her mother's female relatives have had it by the time they were 50, including her mother, so I can see why she'd want to know, but at the same time, it's rather worrisome, because it makes me wonder if her insurance company will cover treatment if she develops it at some point in the next 50 years, since American insurance companies will do that to you.

Anyway, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do.  I feel for her, but am I supposed to go on acting like everything will be fine?  That's been my approach so far, and I think it's helping her.  Maybe.  I know I don't intend to treat her like she's going to die, since her chances range from 56% to 87% of her contracting it by the time she's 70.  Maybe she won't get it until she's 67 or something.  I know I'm not going to treat her like a time bomb, or in any other way that is different from how I have treated her for the past 15 years.  Even if she does develop cancer when she's 35, she's still the person she was before, not a disease.

Well, that was depressing.

In other things for me to worry about with E, she and her husband have agreed to divorce.  He's also stopped saying that he wants to take her to court, because most of the belongings they have were acquired by E before the marriage, and all that would happen would be that he would have a lot less stuff than before.  I think this is a fairly sensible course of action, and a lot better than the previously childish behavior he was displaying when E first made it apparent that she wanted a divorce.  However, this does not absolve his previous behavior, and I am not even slightly impressed by him.  I hope, if she ever gets married again, that she marries an actual adult next time, and not a man-child.  At least that's good news, sort of.  I mean, getting divorced sucks, but at least she's not sentencing herself to a lifetime of misery instead of facing and dealing with the issue.

I tried to call her this morning, but she didn't answer the phone, either because she was busy or because she didn't recognize the number, since I called from the house phone and not my cell phone.  She called while I was writing this post and we talked for a very long time about lots of different things.  It was nice, we haven't done that in a long time.

I've been amusing myself by pressing on my sinuses in my cheeks, because it makes my nose feel like it's being strangled.  It's kind of a cool sensation, actually.  I imagine that's weird.

I've allowed myself to fall behind on the laundry, mostly due to the lethargy that comes with allergies and sleep deprivation.  This sucks, but hopefully I'll feel a little better in a few days and will be able to keep up with it again.  Please.

I think I'm going to take a walk today, since it's so nice out.  That'll be different.

I recently took photos of the giant spider that lives right outside the living room window eating a cicada.  It's actually pretty cool, and if I wasn't terrified of the spider, I'd go outside in the early mornings and get pictures of it from that angle, but I'm simply not able to do that.  That layer of glass between us is the only thing that allows me to photograph it at all.  It is a pretty interesting thing to observe, though.  Also, S says that it's just an orb weaver, which is a pretty common spider.  According to her.  Because I have no idea.  I know what black widows look like, and I can sometimes identify brown recluse spiders, and jumping spiders because they're easy, but the rest are "OMG KILL IT" and tarantulas.  Except for those spiders that eat birds in Australia.  Those make me want to move to a space station permanently.  Anyway, spider picture.

"Nom nom nom!" says the spider.  "Aaaarghblbaaahsghghff!" says the cicada.

Anyway, I have links.  I have about 20, actually, due to the fact that I don't stop reading things like Fark just because I haven't written a blog post.  Also, my head feels like a water balloon from the incredible amount of sinus pressure I'm developing at an exponential rate.

Links Round-Up

I'm starting with the saddest stuff first today, so there'll be less sad at the end.

There are a lot of articles about 9/11 lately, since the 10th anniversary is coming up, and one of them was about the photographer who took the famous "Falling Man" picture, and how everything surrounding the photo and that day have affected him, and it also talks about how powerful the image is.  That's one of the more heartbreaking photos I've seen from September 11th.  The explosions, the people running in the streets, none of that is as gut-wrenching as looking at that photograph.

In addition to the article about the Falling Man photograph, I also found an article about surviving twins from the attacks - 46 people who were twins died, and their surviving siblings have been trying to figure out how to go on with their lives after suddenly becoming an "I" instead of a "we".

Apparently a whole lot of people would rather feel safe than have their rights.  That's really scary.  I will never trade my rights for more security.  That's how things like the Patriot Act happen.

Why, why would someone have to go to jail for overdue library books?  I can't imagine what the motivation is and I'm horrified that this happened.  What's next?  The death penalty if you lose a few over the course of your patronage at the library?  This is why our libraries are disappearing.

This guy is seriously fucked up.  Also, this makes me never want to own a computer with a webcam again.  I wonder if the government has the ability to do that.  That's a seriously scary thought.

There's a 10 year old child who lives in a small town and has identified as female since toddlerhood, despite being biologically male.  Her parents, when they talk about their children, say they have two daughters, and she is allowed to dress how she pleases and decorate her bedroom in a feminine way, as well.  The only dissenter is her grandfather.  I think she's very lucky, and I wish her all the best in her future.

Some bigoted asshole thinks it might be psychologically damaging for children to witness diversity being welcomed on national television, and advises against allowing any children to watch Chaz Bono (Cher's son) on Dancing With The Stars.  Also, how is seeing a transgendered person on television going to affect the sexual/personal identity of any children or adolescents watching the show?  I think it's great that it's not being treated as a thing by the show, as it's just one of many identities a person can have.  Of course this article is from Fox News.

I think it's pretty cool that advertisers are starting to be more diverse when showing commercials for their products.  K-Y has a commercial following their current trend of couples talking, but showing a lesbian couple this time.  It's not any different at all from any of their commercials featuring heterosexual couples, and I think that's wonderful.  Maybe things will be okay and acceptance is in store for the LGBT community.  Also, the slideshow of commercials on this article are worth watching, particularly the John Hancock Financial Services commercial, which made me cry.

I found a very old article about Lane Bryant while researching the origins of the company a few days ago, talking about the controversy surrounding a lingerie ad that was supposed to be aired during prime-time slots, alongside very similar Victoria's Secret ads.  But of course, the networks had a problem with the Lane Bryant ad, what with the very healthy, voluptuous, sexy woman in the commercial, while the walking clothes hangers in the Victoria's Secret spots received no criticism at all.  Obviously we're having a problem here figuring out what is sexy.  Personally, I do not think a woman who has protruding hip bones, ribs, shoulders, and everything else is a sexy person.  Anorexia is not hot.  My personal, ultimate goal for the weight loss I'd like to achieve is to look like that Lane Bryant model.  Because shit.  She is HOT.  Oh my god.

I'm voting for Obama this election, and this is why.  At least he's not trying to take away more of my rights.  This terrifies the hell out of me.  I'm not sure what candidates the other parties have, but because everyone is so complacent in this country, there will never be any real change to the world because no one cares enough to make it happen or elect someone that might be able to fix this mess.  I really do think we need a complete overhaul of our government system, this is ridiculous.  I want to only elect people who pay attention to the needs and wants of the people they're supposed to be representing, or maybe we should just get rid of Congress altogether so that way the general public can vote on every law that goes through and whether it should be a law or not.  I don't know.  I'm not really educated enough to figure out what the solution to this would be, but I don't think it has anything to do with keeping the same corrupt, self-serving rich assholes in office.  In any case, I want to keep my reproductive rights, so none of the people that are Republican candidates for president are getting my vote.  I just find it hilarious that this is what Republican has come to mean, because they used to be the polar opposite of this.

Also, speaking of reproductive rights, a judge in Texas blocked parts of a new abortion law that was ready to take effect on September 1.  The law would have forced every woman who wanted an abortion to view a sonogram of her fetus/embryo and listen to its heartbeat, without exception for a woman who was the victim of rape or incest.  If she was, and did not wish to view a sonogram (duh), she would have to certify in writing exactly why she didn't want to do that.  I would imagine that anyone who was having an abortion would probably not want to view a sonogram.  Apparently it's more important to protect the rights of a cluster of cells than the woman incubating them these days, and honestly, I don't see how that cluster of cells is more important that my wants.  Once it becomes a viable living baby, we'll talk.  Also, the Justice Department is starting to crack down on abortion protesters harassing women who are entering the clinics.  I love how abortion protesters don't even think for a second that a woman might go into a Planned Parenthood to get a pap smear, or renew her birth control prescription, or to get free condoms, or any of the other things that happen at Planned Parenthood that have nothing to do with an abortion.  For fuck's sake, people, get a grip and stop this insanity.  It is no one's business but the individual's if they want an abortion.  Back the hell off.

Some assholes decided to teach a female smoker a "lesson".  Did you know that cigarettes actually release less harmful chemicals and gases into the air than, say, cars?  And the truck in the video obviously had some illegal modifications done to it.  I hope that woman called the cops or something, because she definitely did not deserve that.  This is why I am against anti-smoking laws.  Who cares if they are smoking?  I think it's fine if people are smoking outside of public gathering places.  I'm still working on quitting, so I can speak from the perspective of a smoker.  I have never been comfortable smoking in bars and restaurants that allow it, preferring to go outside.  I'm always mindful of blowing the smoke away from others as much as possible.  I try to be as fucking considerate as possible, but these guys?  If they did that shit to me, I'd hunt them down and blow an entire pack's worth of smoke directly into their eyeballs.  And then kick them in their balls.  Fuck you, anonymous truck-driving assholes.

I really like wildlife photography.  It's not something that I sit around and talk about at length or anything, because that's just not very interesting, but sometimes there are photographs that just grab you and scream to be talked about.  These photos of lions are some of that kind of photograph.  The facial expressions are just incredible.  Lions are beautiful.

Also, desert sunset photos.  Because this particular jet trail looks like a tornado, and these are beautiful photographs.

I really like the concept of store pets.  It's just something that's always appealed to me, and here is a case of a cat that is 19 years old and has lived in a hardware store for 15 years.  That is so awesome.


This is what happens when you get bored and have a colicky baby.  Pretty cute, actually.

I think if more companies did this, the world would be more awesome.  This is seriously awesome.

There was a tree in Brooklyn called "The Vagina Tree" because it, well, looked like a vagina.  Hurricane Irene decided this would never do and knocked it down.  Poor Vagina Tree.

Of course someone would be offended by the most awesome cutting board in the history of everything ever, but I'm not, because it's pretty freaking terrific.  S thinks so, too.  Also, I discovered that ThinkGeek already has them in their inventory yesterday morning, so I am now biding my time until I can afford to completely furnish my kitchen with ThinkGeek merchandise.

And now I'm finally done with this post, which took about four hours, due to having a very long phone call when I was halfway done.

Epic Mall Trip with Clarification

Okay, so now that I'm not all goofy on a single Benadryl, I figured I'd actually write about yesterday in a way that made more sense than yesterday's post.  If I can manage to type like a human, I'm failing today.

Anyway, yesterday morning, we went out to go to the mall to pick up the bras.  As I said yesterday, mine didn't fit, which was pretty disappointing.  I wound up exchanging it for one that fit really well that they had in stock in the store, because they didn't have the color I wanted in the size I needed at all, not even online.  And it really was the most excellent shade of magenta.  Of course, it wound up taking almost an hour to get all of that sorted out, because we had to first find the right size, and then I ended up with the same saleslady who sold me the jeans I bought there not too long ago, and she was awful.  I started with the awesome manager, but was unfortunate enough to end up with the saleslady again.  She was inappropriate and pushy and just like last time, insisted that I sign up for a Lane Bryant card, to "save" money.  Thing is, she bugged me about it so much last time that I gave in and let her sign me up, and was still declined, and she still sold my jeans for the wrong price.  Anyway, this time she decided to do the return separately from purchasing the correct size, I assume so she could get the commission, but she fucked me over by doing that, because when she returned it, it went back to my card, but that wasn't going to post right away because, you know, bank, and I didn't have any money left.  So at first, it looked like I wasn't going to leave with a bra, and I was just getting angrier and angrier with her because she was a flaming idiot, and then the manager came over and fixed it by voiding the return so it never happened, and then processing it as an even exchange instead.  The saleslady was also rude when she thought I was ordering it from online to be delivered to my house (when we were checking to see if they had it in the color I wanted online), but when we discovered they had the same color options online as in the store, I wound up with one from the store, and she was nicer after that.  So the dumb bitch was just after a commission, but apparently doesn't understand that if you want repeat customers, you can't only care about the commission.  Also, she was snarky again when the manager fixed it so it was an even exchange.  Not the best shopping experience in the world.  She should really learn that giving the best customer service experience possible is much more important than getting her commission.

Anyway, I got home, took photos (including a photo for ThinkGeek of my Firefly shirt), and decided I missed eating bananas.  So I made a peanut butter and banana sandwich with a hilarious amount of peanut butter after taking a single Benadryl about 20 minutes before I started eating.  Even with the Benadryl in my system, my tongue still swelled a little, and the roof of my mouth was a bit itchy, but it was nothing compared to how it would have been had I not taken the Benadryl.  This also resulted in yesterday's rather special blog post.

Also, as briefly mentioned yesterday, I looked really good.  I even took pictures.  I even changed my Facebook and Google+ profile pictures to pictures of my face for the first time in months.  (Well, first time ever for Google+.)  Also, the hat I made for myself last summer now looks really good on me because my hair has grown enough that it no longer looks silly. 

Woo!  Well, anyway, the Benadryl made me very sleepy, which was kind of bad, since I was supposed to be watching the Toddler for S for a little while, but she got Girl Child to help me.  Well, until Girl Child got distracted and went to her room, at which point I held the Toddler on my lap on the big chair by the TV so he could watch Sprout and I could sort of sleep - I'd wake up every time he moved, so it worked pretty well.  Then S came back and I was able to sort of just sit and feel tired.

So that was yesterday.  Today has been pretty uneventful, but I haven't been awake all that long, and the most exciting thing that's happened is that a door to door salesman showed up and made the dogs bark.  There are links, though, because I'm tired of having a million tabs open on Firefox.

---

Links Round-Up

Someone had an idea of how to help fix the economy, except that we all know that no bank would ever do this, because they care much more about profits than about fixing things.

The nurse that did this was a moron, and I hope like hell that none of the patients affected by this caught anything from her doing this.  Oh my god.

A woman who used to be a fashion merchandiser and is now a sociologist is committing to a year without mirrors, due to her fear that she will start having problems with her body image again.  It's kind of interesting.

Michele Bachmann is making more gaffes than I think Sarah Palin did.  This is one of the more idiotic things I've ever heard.  Especially since no one's god should have a place in government.

How the ink industry really works.  (Comic)

How Internet Explorer 10 should actually work, thus making it the best browser ever.  (Image)

To Me, Benadryl IS The Good Stuff

Okay, so there are things you should probably not do if you want to function for the rest of the day.  Taking a Benadryl because you miss eating bananas is one of these things.

I can barely write this post, which is rather unfortunate, as I have a bunch of links.  But I'm all slurry and stuff and can't really talk at all.  Or write or something.  Whatever I'm trying to say.  Maybe you understand.  I'm not sure I do.

I picked up the bras I bought.  The one for me didn't fit at all, and they didn't have it in stock online or in the store in the color I wanted in the size that fits, so I had to get a different color, which I was sad about, because it was the most awesome shade of magenta ever.  This is very boo.  But yay, because it fits and looks terrific on me.

I had a pretty day today.  There are pictures, but I can't show them to anyone because my USB ports don't work properly.  Bad Frankenstein, no biscuit.  I almost wrote business.  That was hard.  I don't normally have problems remembering how to spell words, but I can't today.  Because Benadryl IS the good stuff to me.

So this is going to have to be a really short post.  Because I'm not sure I can sustain this amount of typing for much longer, and I'm pretty sure none of this makes sense.  Maybe it does.  I don't know.  The mall was ridiculous today.  The Toddler was scared of the Disney store.  Uh.  Stuff happened.  S and I are quitting smoking as of tonight.  After we go to bed, there will be no more smokey treats.  J will be smoking outside until he quits.  If he does.  I hope he does.  But yeah.  I'm tired of how they make me feel sometimes and stuff.

Anyway.  Wow, I'm just getting more disjointed.  So.  I will write in normal words tomorrow when I am not on drugs.  I didn't think Benadryl counted as a drug, but what do I know?  Also, the shift key is a poor substitute for a space bar. Yeah.  Okay.  Done.

Winter Clothes, Laundry Success, and Rediscovering Music

I often completely forget about the existence of some songs.  I will hear a song, love it, and then years later be reminded of it (usually because of a Wikipedia trawl), and be horrified that I don't have it on my iPod.  I rediscovered Gone Till November by Wyclef Jean last night while I was reading Wikipedia articles about the previous MTV Video Music Awards shows, from back when they had a huge selection of categories and were actually about music.  Anyway, Gone Till November won an award in 1998, and I remember seeing the music video on MTV, because it was right around the time I started watching MTV.  (That makes me old, the fact that I can remember when MTV and VH1 had actual music videos broadcasting in the daytime.)  But I loved that song, and I forgot all about it, so I am very happy to have rediscovered it.  Now once I get all the music off the other computer and reorganize on this computer (J is pretty sure it's the motherboard that's gone bad, but he didn't even check to see if the power button is broken or not, so it could be that, too), I will have the ability to see what I do and don't have, and make sure I haven't already gotten it and just forgotten about it.  Because that would be annoying, and I tend to do that rather often.

Anyway, I finished the laundry today.  My shirt also arrived, which I'm very excited about, and it's now washed and dried and sitting in my dresser waiting for me to wear it.  S and I are picking up the bras tomorrow sometime, after we go to the library to print the email confirmation to prove that I am in fact the person who bought the damn things, and then there will (hopefully) be new bras!  Woo!  Also, folding sheets is awful and I do not recommend it to anyone who wants to keep their sanity.  But there's only one load of dirty clothing right now, and I need to wash the comforters, and that is it.  Everything else is clean.  I can't say put away because Girl Child won't let me put her clothes away for her and all she does is stuff them in a random part of her dresser and then wonder why nothing fits.  All the rest of the clothes are put away, though, except for a few of S's because the dresser simply doesn't have the capacity for more.  And the closet is so full I couldn't fit another thing in there if I was Hagrid.  I'm feeling pretty good about the state of the laundry, though - it's whittled down to a point where I'll only need to do about a load a day, probably.

I actually had a disagreement with Girl Child about that.  She doesn't see why I should want the laundry to be completely done.  Because she doesn't care, and she doesn't think it matters.  Sometimes I really just want to grab her and shake her - but I'll just fantasize about shoving a banana up her nose instead.  (No worries, no crabby hormonal teenagers were harmed in the making of this blog.)  Besides, the banana threat worked fairly well as a laugh-inducer earlier, even if she didn't bother doing any of the things I asked her to do until I nagged her about it.  I would fall over in a dead faint if I discover tomorrow that she actually bothered to put her sheets on her bed like I told her to.  I'm really frustrated with her right now, can you tell?

I spent this morning baby-sitting the Toddler because S didn't get to sleep until after 4:00 this morning and he woke up at 5:30, so at 8:00, she decided to get me up and ask me to take care of him until later.  She got another three hours of sleep, which I guess is something.  Unfortunately, there was so little coffee left in the house that what I ended up making was like weak tea.  It was very sad.  J was up until about 6:00 this evening (so almost 24 hours), so I had a little back-up when I was alone with the Toddler, and the day was generally a good one.  Dealing with Girl Child was frustrating, the Toddler was both a giant butthead and really sweet, J was mostly playing on his computer and quiet, and S was S.  The highlight of my day was playing Final Fantasy X.  I'm finally ready to admit that I'm a little over-leveled - I killed Seymour in the battle on Gagazet so quickly that I barely got everyone in on the AP for the battle.

While I was folding the laundry this afternoon, the Toddler hung out with me.  I stuck him in the crib while I was playing music and managed to get a decent amount done until he decided he wanted to go back to the living room.  It was actually a pretty cool way to fold the laundry, too.  I sang to him and he'd either "sing" or start to dance, and then he'd throw one of his stuffed animals at me and start screaming for no apparent reason.  He's adorable.

I just heard a weird noise.  It sounded like air rapidly leaking from an air mattress, and I was a bit startled, as it started very suddenly, so I began looking all around the living room for the sound, only to discover it was S, with her cheeks puffed out, blowing out air through her mouth.  I told her that I was very startled by the noise and had thought it was a giant balloon or air mattress I'd somehow not noticed in the living room leaking air, which she thought was very funny.  Then I said, "Oh, you're just leaking again," and she said, "Occasionally I just plug the hole with something.. You know, food, drink, cock, whatever."

Yeah, that's what it's like to live here.

Anyway, I had more stuff to write about.  Oh, yes.  This evening, I went through the stuff I have stored in totes downstairs (this is what my life boils down to - totes) so I could get all my winter clothes sorted out and ready for when it gets cold.  Not that I really need them - if I wear a long-sleeved shirt, I only need a light sweater when it's 30 degrees outside.  I barely wore my coat at all.  Not that it fits anymore - my chest has gotten too big to button it, and it was the biggest size Kohl's had in that style, and was the first girly coat I've ever owned.  I'm a little disappointed, but maybe I'll shrink a little once I lose some weight.  Anyway, I got my small supply of winter clothes out and took the clothes that I never, ever wear downstairs to keep down there.  They're all clothes that will count as work clothes if I ever manage to get a job, so they'll have to come back up once that happens, unless I have a uniform or something, but for now, they're fine downstairs.  Especially since most of them barely make it over my stupid boobs right now.  (Hence, new bra.)

Anyway, the hat I made last summer (I made a whole set for myself - scarf, hat, and two sets of arm warmers) finally looks good on me now that my hair has grown out - it looked really stupid last year.  Which reminds me, I need to get my ass in gear on the hat I'm making for S so she can wear it with the scarf I made for her last year.  Hopefully I'll be able to make Girl Child's Ravenclaw scarf soon, too - she'll like having that.

My hair is sort of long enough to braid.  It's not a braid I'd ever wear out of the house, because it's all stubby and it'd fall apart in three seconds if I was moving around at all, but it's good for just sitting here.

Anyway, I'm really tired, and there isn't really a whole lot else to say.

Harry Potter and the VMAs

It's been a few days.  I haven't had much to say, really, so things have been boring!  Sorry!

Anyway, today I finally saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.  I was really irritated by some of the (unnecessary) changes that were made to the movie, including the HUGE plot change at the beginning of the Battle of Hogwarts.  I also cried from the point where Harry speaks briefly with Snape until just before the end of the battle.  I was really disappointed, though, all in all - they could have done it more justice.  I'm so glad Pottermore will be open in October, I'm looking forward to stuff that is actually canon.  At least I'll always have the books.

This afternoon was fairly uneventful - I got a migraine from a combination of lack of caffeine and attempting to stop crying and probably eyestrain and had to take a nap, had to suffer through a millionth viewing of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and heard a funny story about the Toddler.

The Toddler was not very pleased at being left behind when S dropped me off at the movie theater this morning.  (I went to the first showing they had available so it would be super cheap.)  When S got him ready to go pick me up, he ran to the door and said, "Me?  Meee?  Me!  Meee!"  When they got outside, he chanted "ME!" while looking everywhere for me before S told him that they had to go bye-bye to get me.  So he ran to the side of the car his car seat is on and tried to open the door himself.  Then he checked the car for me.  When I got in the car, he said, "Me!"  It was pretty cute.  He does the exact same thing, only with a lot more crying and screaming, whenever S leaves the house with M or to make a quick trip to the grocery store when he's awake and left in my care.  I imagine he also didn't spend the two hours I was gone asking for me, either, like he does when S is gone.  ("Ma?  Mom?  Ma?  Mama?  Ma?  Mom? Mommm!"  Imagine this protracted over the course of two hours, broken up by tantrums and staring at the television.)  Moral of the story?  Toddlers are a strange species.

I finally repolished my toenails tonight.  This is probably the most exciting thing I've done in weeks.  They're very dark, because it's getting to be fall and they should stay polished long enough for the weather to cool off so I can stop sweating profusely every time I move.  Fuck summer.  I had many problems polishing my toenails, too.  There was less than an ounce of nail polish remover left in the bottle, and Girl Child managed to lose her bottle, so I had to be very careful when using it to make sure I got all the old polish off on the first try.  Then, of course, the color I wanted to use died, so I grabbed the OPI bottle of black that was in the hallway, only to discover that the (almost completely full) bottle was permanently stuck shut.  J couldn't get it open when Girl Child asked him to earlier today, so he didn't even try when I asked him.  S saved the day with a different bottle of black that has reddish undertones, which was actually pretty cool and closer to what I was originally going for.

Speaking of sweating, S thinks I might have a thyroid problem.  Gahoogy-hoo.  I really need to get to a doctor sometime soon and figure out what all my myriad problems are.

Wearing my glow in the dark Toy Story shirt to the theater today would have been way more awesome if I'd ever been in a room that was actually completely black.  On the other hand, it is totally entertaining to get under the covers and look at my shirt.  Yes, I am easily entertained, and I do find it hilarious when Sunshine chases (and catches) her tail.

So tonight, after the nail polishing, S and I watched the MTV Video Music Awards.  What a waste of time that turned out to be.  I was so disappointed.  It was completely moronic, Lady Gaga was pretending to be a man again, which was really irritating, and the only good performance was Adele.  She was stunning.  Her nails were a little scary, though.  30 Seconds to Mars was nominated for Best Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing, which was why S wanted to watch it, but they didn't even show those on the broadcast.  And they didn't win.  I don't know who did, but that was pretty disappointing, especially since we got treated to a Lil Wayne performance before it immediately cut to the stupidest show I've ever had the misfortune to find myself watching in my life.  It was called I Just Want My Pants Back.  It was filmed very much in the style of another MTV show called Undressed, which was on in 1998, except with hipsters instead of college students.  Snarky hipsters who don't behave like any normal person I've ever seen.

Basically, MTV is a travesty, and really needs to find a new name for themselves, since I haven't even heard of a music video being featured on MTV in at least five years.  The whole thing was a train wreck.  One part that was good was when some guy I've never heard of named Rick Ross was in his "dressing room" in a pre-recorded segment, and he was painting and pretending to be Bob Ross.  That was absolutely hilarious.  "Happy little tree... right there.  Happy little trees."

Anyway.  I hope I never have the misfortune to ever have to watch MTV again for the rest of my life.  I don't care if that makes me old, I like quality music, and almost none of that was quality.  It was pulp.

I have a lot of links.  Because I am a lazy blogger.  Crap.

Links Round-Up Ahoy!  (Apparently it's a nautical edition.)

GameStop is a bunch of jackasses, and they'll be lucky if I ever set foot in one of their stores again after this stunt.  I might apply for a job with them, though, but I will never shop there.  I like my games unopened and unsullied, thanks.

Ron Paul finds FEMA unnecessary.  Oh boy.  I really do wonder which of the Republican candidates are going to terrify me into voting for Obama in the 2012 election, even though I was already pretty sure I was going to vote for him anyway unless someone truly awesome came along.

I'm disturbed by what some people label as unsafe.  I don't think radio waves are harmful.  I don't know why anyone ever would.  And of course this crazy woman is homeschooling her kids!  This is just as bad as that genderless baby.  I wonder if they're friends?

Corporations suck.  I want a job.  Fuck the fucking shareholders.

I love Bad Translator.

You know, I want to make a Jayne Cobb hat.  I would totally wear it.  I do not, however, think it is a good idea to cosplay as a Jayne Cobb hat.  What the hell.

Also, vote for my Rage Comic.  I really want to make the front page.

(This blog title was so easy!!  Haha!)

And now, I go to bed.

Overheating, Rage Comics, and Links

I'm overheating really easily today.  This is most unfortunate, because I can't move.  If I move, I break out in a sweat and feel sick.  So I can't do the laundry, or put the folded stuff away, or play with the Toddler, or do anything at all that requires any motion at all.  Typing is almost too much.  This is ridiculous.  It's only 85 degrees outside, and it's about 78 in the house!  (The A/C works unevenly - the bathroom and bedrooms feel fantastic, and the rest of the house is miserable.)

Anyway, I don't have the most exciting post ever here - not a whole lot has changed since yesterday.  As an example of how weird my memory is, J was talking about me being stressed over what happened yesterday before he went to bed this morning, and I was completely confused.  I'd forgotten about getting the boxes in the mail.  He looked at me like I was stupid until I remembered.  Wow.  Just wow.

The Toddler has taken to grabbing books off the bookshelves around the house at random and trying to destroy them.  He's already destroyed on of J and S's Robert Heinlein novels and S's copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  We gave him a trash romance novel to play with so he'd leave them alone, but it's not much of a deterrent.

Today, I made a rage comic.  You should vote for it so it makes the front page.

I also have a ...

Link Round-Up!!

Florida forces welfare recipients to take drug tests, which backfires horribly, as only 2% of those on welfare tested positive.  Wonderful job, Florida.

Here's another case of too much paranoia in the airline industry.  As if terrorists will use airliners again.  At least, the serious terrorists probably won't.  I imagine they'll use some other means of major destruction to terrorize the government into removing more and more of our civil liberties.  I feel so sorry for the guy in the article.

I posted awhile back about a guy who wants to create a libertarian island nation in international waters.  I found an article with more information.  It still doesn't sound very promising.

Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!  Washington, D.C. had a minor earthquake.  WE WILL REBUILD.

A 12-year-old boy delivers his own baby brother after watching many hospital shows on television.  Is it a surprise to anyone that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up?

When a young Navy SEAL died, his dog was loyal to the end, even laying on the ground next to his casket at his funeral.  When I first read the article about it, I was worried the dog wouldn't have anyone to take him in, but the best friend of his owner has stepped up and given him a home.  Poor puppy, I feel so sorry for him.

Telemarketer Torture and Sad Memories

Today has been kind of weird.  I spent a good portion of the day talking to C, who I haven't really had the opportunity to talk to at great length in years due to circumstances, about recent and ancient history.  There aren't a whole lot of people that I talk to now who knew me well when I was a teenager, so it's a bit of a different experience.  I can't say E, LK, or JHB fit into that category - JHB never talks about much other than his interests, and I wasn't as close to him at the beginning of high school as I was to C. 

Anyway, talking to someone who knew me so well during that time period is a little weird in some ways, but it's also pretty awesome.  Anyway, that was the primary activity of the day, talking about all manner of subjects.  We basically picked up the friendship where it got left off in 2005, except with higher maturity levels.  It's different to talk to him now.  I can't explain why, as I'm in a weird state of mind and I'm having a hard time stringing a sentence together.

S tortured a telemarketer for 20 minutes today.  He wouldn't let her hang up, so it's his own fault.  He was really desperate for her to pay for a vacation to Branson.  Eventually the Toddler got bored, and this resulted in a lot of noise between me trying to contain him and him screaming, and it became a hilarious phone conversation with a really weird telemarketer who wouldn't let her hang up.  She kept telling him she didn't have money for that, and he'd suggest J was hiding money or that maybe I was hiding money, and suggested she tell the Toddler to go play in the sandbox and told her how he teases his kids with telling them to play in traffic.  Seriously crazy telemarketer.  Actually, at one point, I shouted at her that the kitchen was on fire in an attempt to get him to let her hang up.

The Toddler nearly broke the TV screen today because he decided to start smacking it.  Fun.

J woke up really early today, when I was laying the Toddler down for a nap, so once the Toddler got up, I was really excited, thinking I'd finally have the opportunity to fold the laundry in peace, but I only managed the kids' laundry before J came in to say he needed to take a nap, so I still have about five loads of laundry to fold.  Crap.

Today's been boring.  As usual.  I think I may watch Firefly again tonight while folding laundry so I can get it put the hell away.  Speaking of putting laundry away, I'm really annoyed with Girl Child, who won't let me put her laundry away and won't do it herself.  I had that dresser completely neat and she dumped everything out of it all over everywhere in her room.  And she's hogging a good basket because she won't put away the clothes I just folded for her.  Ridiculous.

I really need to get enough sleep consistently every night.  I'm always so tired.  And I'm having memory problems, which may or may not be related to lack of sleep.  I completely forgot what happened this morning.

My ex-fiance sent my stuff back to me from England, and it arrived this morning.  Two mugs I'd forgotten about (he forgot the fridge magnets, though, which upsets me a little, but I'll live), some clothes, a crocheting project I started in 2007 and never finished, a bathing suit that's way too small for me, a purse I'd forgotten about leaving there, and the bucket we collected seashells and sea glass in when we went to Scarborough.  This was the only thing that made me cry.  It was broken when it arrived, too, so it had to be thrown away.  The Toddler kept trying to steal it from me.  I hadn't expected it to be so painful, getting all that stuff back.

Anyway.  There's really not much to say after that.  It's really too bad this is such a depressing note to leave this on, but there isn't much more to say.  I feel like crap.  Today was just totally lame.  There were good parts, but my current state of mind says that today was a really dumb day.  I think I just need to sleep.  I'm just exhausted and kind of crabby.  Hopefully I'll have something interesting to write about in a day or two when I stop feeling like this.

I Can't Think of Anything to Put Here

I've been out of the house more today than I have in the past week.  We went to the grocery store, my bank, and Wal-Mart, where I got some schizophrenic Halloween underwear and a glow-in-the-dark Toy Story shirt, but I forgot to get nail files and a new toothbrush and we never got anything for J for his lunch at work, so we're going to have to go out again.  We took the Toddler to Arby's for a quick lunch, and he got to sit on the bench next to S like a big boy, which was really cute.

Why is it that we always have lots of errands on days when there's a heat advisory?  It's some sort of... can't think of the word, but it's like the world is working against us.  S can't think of the word I want, either.  Stupid brain.

Today, I ordered some stuff online, one of which I am really excited about -  this shirt.  Oh yes.  I am so excited.

I'm still using the No 'Poo treatment, and my hair is wonderful.  I have next to no frizz, except on particularly humid days, so this winter will probably be wonderful.  My hair feels much thicker and silkier, and it's much easier to get a brush through it, unless it's in the morning.  I think I get in a wrestling match with my pillows or something when I'm sleeping, because I always wake up with the craziest morning hair ever.  It almost tops how I remember my mother's from when I was little.  Then again, she's always had curly hair, so her hair will always be crazier than mine.  Anyway.  My hair is great, and since S is also using the same stuff, we're saving about $240 a year, because we're not buying shampoo for each of us anymore.  (Everyone in the house has different hair types, so each person needs their own shampoo when we buy commercial shampoo.)  But that's a ridiculous amount of money we're saving by not having to buy shampoo and conditioner, not to mention styling products!

In other "crunchy" news, I still really want to make my own body wash.  I'll probably do that after I have a job and have the money to throw at it so I can get really nice stuff.

The dogs never got bathed last night because S was in too much pain and I was too tired.  We have to get it done sometime soon, but I don't even know when we'll be able to.  Whee!

Speaking of dogs, Shadow was just laying all over me.  He just leaped off the couch, though.  And now the baby is awake, so this post is done, because we have to get dressed all over again and go out and finish errands.  And oh god, the laundry!

Dog Baths and Head Injuries

Today has been extraordinarily boring.  Seriously, I've completely run out of internet.  S made an interesting dinner that she pulled out of her ass that's sort of modified chicken pot pie.  She made a ridiculous amount of it, too, so we're going to be eating it forever.  It was actually pretty tasty, even if it did have peas in it.  I hate peas, but I ate them anyway, because vegetables are important!

S and I are currently conspiring against the dogs to get them bathed tonight so they stop being such itchy puppies.  I think we have to clean up the floor and vacuum and Febreeze first, but then we're dragging each dog into the bathroom and making them suffer the indignity of a bath.  If S feels good enough, she's been in a lot of pain lately, poor thing.  We're going to have to break out the crutches again soon and make her use them so her foot will finish healing already.

I am easily entertained.  S and I just sat here making faces at each other for a minute or two.

The Toddler was a terror today.  I was watching him for awhile this afternoon, and it wasn't pretty.  I got his toy hammer for him, and he decided to hit me with it and wouldn't stop when I told him to stop, so I took it away.  I was going to leave it at that, but then he started screaming and hitting me, so he got a time-out for that, which was punctuated by attempted head-butting and more screaming and struggling.  Then, when I put the hammer on the bookshelf to take it from him for the afternoon (because of the hitting and screaming behavior when I took it away for hitting me with it), he started screaming and crying again and threw his cup across the room, so he got another time-out for that.  This was in the space of five minutes.  I also got my face crawled on today, but it was while we were playing, so I don't count those injuries as much.

I've gotten a lot of laundry done today, and should be almost done by tomorrow if I don't burn out again.  I definitely need to get to folding, which I'm going to try to get done pretty quick here before we clean the living room and bathe the dogs.

Today, Girl Child got PJ pants in her size that are the same pattern as the ones I just got, because S promised she'd get them for her this week.  It's a good thing I remembered, because there were only two pairs of those pants left at Wal-Mart, and only one was in Girl Child's size.  She was thrilled, though.  Of course, this will lead to lots and lots of mix-ups, just like with the lemon shirts.  Maybe less so, because it'll be ridiculously obvious that the pants don't fit if she accidentally steals mine.

Uh.. other stuff that happened today... Well, the Toddler fell on his head while we were at Wal-Mart.  He was really excited and running in the aisle we were in and ran right past S and around a corner, tripped over his own feet, and fell on his head so hard the floor reverberated.  He was very unhappy about that.  He also peeled a scab off his eyebrow and made the spot bleed all over again.  (The scab was from when he used his face to go down the stairs on the playground when we went to take storm pictures last weekend.)  The whole area is swollen all over again, poor baby.

I haven't really had the opportunity to play Final Fantasy X in about a week.  I've either been too tired or the Toddler has been around, and it's difficult to actually play when he's up because of constantly having to stop him from getting into stuff he shouldn't.  Plus, there's all that laundry.

So, basically, nothing interesting happened today.  There's a cricket somewhere in the house making way too much noise.  I hate crickets.  I'm also scared of them because of the jumping thing.  I just told it to die and it stopped chirping momentarily.

Today I decided I'm going to apply for a job at the Sara Lee plant.  I hope I get it.  At least it'll be a job, and if I manage to keep all my body parts and stuff, maybe I can find a job closer to home or something, unless it pays ridiculously well.

I have one link to share, so it's not exactly a link round-up.  Cracked has an article about things that stopped people from committing suicide, and it was actually really cool.  It was pretty sappy, too, but I like sappy.  I almost cried on the last one.  You should definitely go read it.

Laundry and Linkage

Today's been an okay kind of day.  I spent a good bit of time just sitting around, being tired.  J stayed up really, really late, so he was around for awhile.

I reorganized Girl Child's entire dresser today so everything will fit better, and I think I'm going to have to start putting her clothes away for her so things stay organized.  I don't think she'll particularly mind, except if she wants a specific shirt.  She and S are actually planning on going through her clothes this weekend and sorting out what doesn't fit and what she hates, so it will definitely be easier for her to get to her clothes after that.

I also lost my mind and decided to sort the laundry that still needs to be washed - I've caught up enough that there aren't a million loads of it anymore, so I'm finally able to wash the loads by type and color, and I've only got about eight or nine loads downstairs now.  Of course, the household generates almost a load of laundry a day, so that won't last long, but I feel pretty accomplished about what I have done so far.

I've started biting my nails again, and I'm not very happy about that.  I was doing great for awhile, and I'm not sure what happened.  Hopefully I'll be able to stop again soon.

E talked me into creating a PayPal account today, and then sent me $25 as a "very very late birthday present".  She's really wonderful, I love her to death.  She's finally starting to work on getting divorced, too.  God, I wish she'd just told me before the wedding, because it would have been so much easier on them both, not having all this time to tear each other apart.  I guess I can't really focus on that regret, and neither can she.  I worry about her, though.  I can't imagine how poisonous her current home environment must be, and I really wish she'd just hurry up and move out.

Anyway, there's not really anything else to say.  Girl Child is currently doing the dishes, and once she's done, I'll be able to start the load of laundry that's in the washing machine, I have a small load of jeans to fold, and I'm really tempted to go on the hunt for more dirty laundry.  My life really does currently revolve around laundry, but at least if I maintain the system that I've set up downstairs, I'll suffer a lot less irritation, and probably be able to find clothing regardless of whether it's been folded yet or not.

So, on a less boring note, I have links to post about.  I've been gathering them for two days.

Link Round-Up

Some idiot thinks that carrying babies facing forward or in forward facing strollers will damage their brains or frighten them more than necessary, saying that parents unnecessarily traumatize their infants every day.  I can't believe this for a second, because every baby I've known has preferred to be facing forward, regardless of whether I was the one holding him or if it was his mother.  (Every single baby I've ever taken care of has been a boy - my current count of children I've baby-sat is up to six, every single one of them were boys who were in diapers at the time.  Half of them still are in diapers, actually.)  Anyway, I've never seen a baby who was fearful about being in a forward facing stroller or being in a carrier facing forward, or even just being held that way.  They want to take the world in, and they're more likely to be bored and bitchy if they can't see what's going on around them.

I found this article and the accompanying slideshow thought-provoking, a little heartbreaking, a little disgusting, and interesting.  I've got very mixed feelings about the whole thing, some of which are just too big for me to form into words.

Apparently Tyra Banks felt the need to write a book.  I attempted to read the first chapter, but it's so awful that I didn't make it past the first few paragraphs.  Not even Twilight was this bad, and I thought the single chapter I read of the first Twilight novel was terrible.  (I only read it so I could tell people that I had in fact attempted to read it if they challenged my criticism of the book, because I thought the concept sounded stupid right from the beginning.)

I don't normally post stuff like this, because it's more mundane than some of the other stuff I post, but the fact that Rupert Grint basically impersonates Kenny when he goes out in public to avoid all the publicity and attempt to live a normal life amuses me greatly.  That and the fact that he is lovely, lovely eye candy.

I love this short little story about the antics that went on during the development of Windows 95.  It's really kind of cute.

I stumbled upon the story of a neglected little girl while reading Fark a few days ago, and did some further research on her to find the original article about her.  It's one of the most tragic, heartbreaking, and horrific cases of neglect I've ever seen.  My heart aches for this little girl, and I hope the new family she has are able to do right by her.

And last, a ridiculous person who hates cursing.