probably just acid reflux disease.
Whew.
He even shoveled my snow this morning for me.
I love my dad.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
How rude!
I didn't work on Friday. I have been drifting in and out of consciousness all weekend. I managed to clean out one closet Saturday afternoon, which I'm pretty proud of.
At 2 am this morning, my mom called me to tell me she took my dad to the hospital. He went to work at 11 and came home dizzy and with chest pains. He was already driving home when he called my mom to tell her, she could have killed him for driving in that condition. But, that's my dad. Stubborn to a fault.
I had trouble falling back asleep, at 6 am she picked me up and I went to her house with her. I tucked her into bed and took care of the dogs. I went back home for a few hours, slept a bit and then went back to her house at 10. She went back to the hospital, armed with clean clothes and a disc man and CDs for my dad to listen to. Friday afternoon I got a copy of Pink Floyd, Live at Pompeii that friend of mine burned for me. I had forgotten to tell my dad about it Saturday night when I saw him, so it was a nice surprise for him in the hospital. Of course, since I'm still so sick with this cold, I can't go to the hospital to see him.
I stayed at my mom's house because she had bought a new stove (our Thanksgiving turkey took way too long to cook this year, her oven has been on the fritz for a while) and someone needed to be there to let them in. It started snowing kind of heavily and when the delivery guys came, they tracked snow in everywhere, so I had a bit of mopping up to do. I also cleared the snow on the sidewalk and half of the driveway. Around 3, my mom returned home to get a little bit more sleep. I came back home and shoveled my own sidewalk. The snow is so light and powdery (because it is SO cold right now, the air is super dry) that I used a push broom to clear off my sidewalks despite there being a good inch of snow on the ground or more.
I was really annoyed by some neighbors of mine who used their snow blower on their property, their next door neighbors property, the house next to mine but turned around and didn't finish my property. I was already out there and about half done, but hello! I could use some help here! Nevermind that the house on the other side of me is empty so I shoveled the snow there too.
How rude!
I have got to get motivated to do something, I just can't help but fall asleep randomly all weekend. I may or may not go to work tomorrow. It might be a relief to have something to focus on besides the current drama. My dad is going to be ok. Early test results show he's not had a heart attack, there is no blockage at all in his heart (his father died of a heart attack along with most of his family on that side so this is good news). But it still sucks not knowing what is wrong with him. And my mom is doing ok as well, she always does well in a crisis, thank god. I don't know what I would have done if I had to prop her up or whatever. I'm so out of it, I feel like I'm just going through the motions.
At 2 am this morning, my mom called me to tell me she took my dad to the hospital. He went to work at 11 and came home dizzy and with chest pains. He was already driving home when he called my mom to tell her, she could have killed him for driving in that condition. But, that's my dad. Stubborn to a fault.
I had trouble falling back asleep, at 6 am she picked me up and I went to her house with her. I tucked her into bed and took care of the dogs. I went back home for a few hours, slept a bit and then went back to her house at 10. She went back to the hospital, armed with clean clothes and a disc man and CDs for my dad to listen to. Friday afternoon I got a copy of Pink Floyd, Live at Pompeii that friend of mine burned for me. I had forgotten to tell my dad about it Saturday night when I saw him, so it was a nice surprise for him in the hospital. Of course, since I'm still so sick with this cold, I can't go to the hospital to see him.
I stayed at my mom's house because she had bought a new stove (our Thanksgiving turkey took way too long to cook this year, her oven has been on the fritz for a while) and someone needed to be there to let them in. It started snowing kind of heavily and when the delivery guys came, they tracked snow in everywhere, so I had a bit of mopping up to do. I also cleared the snow on the sidewalk and half of the driveway. Around 3, my mom returned home to get a little bit more sleep. I came back home and shoveled my own sidewalk. The snow is so light and powdery (because it is SO cold right now, the air is super dry) that I used a push broom to clear off my sidewalks despite there being a good inch of snow on the ground or more.
I was really annoyed by some neighbors of mine who used their snow blower on their property, their next door neighbors property, the house next to mine but turned around and didn't finish my property. I was already out there and about half done, but hello! I could use some help here! Nevermind that the house on the other side of me is empty so I shoveled the snow there too.
How rude!
I have got to get motivated to do something, I just can't help but fall asleep randomly all weekend. I may or may not go to work tomorrow. It might be a relief to have something to focus on besides the current drama. My dad is going to be ok. Early test results show he's not had a heart attack, there is no blockage at all in his heart (his father died of a heart attack along with most of his family on that side so this is good news). But it still sucks not knowing what is wrong with him. And my mom is doing ok as well, she always does well in a crisis, thank god. I don't know what I would have done if I had to prop her up or whatever. I'm so out of it, I feel like I'm just going through the motions.
Friday, December 5, 2008
*cough*
In the past 24 hours, I have gone from having a slight throat tickle to full-on craptastic cold from hell. I also have scaly-looking hands, windburn on my face and chapped lips. I am going through lotion like it's going out of style and IT'S NEVER ENOUGH.
I hate winter in Minnesota. The air is so insanely dry. My hair looks like crap, there's so much static electricity that I'm afraid to touch anything.
I'm going to bed now. I may or may not work tomorrow. There's pros and cons to going into work. We'll see how I feel in seven hours.
I hate winter in Minnesota. The air is so insanely dry. My hair looks like crap, there's so much static electricity that I'm afraid to touch anything.
I'm going to bed now. I may or may not work tomorrow. There's pros and cons to going into work. We'll see how I feel in seven hours.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
lights! camera! inaction!
For about a month and a half now, one of my neighbors across the street has left a super bright flood light on all night. The light is on the front of the house and its exact positioning means that it shines RIGHT in my eyes when I'm sitting in my chair in my living room to watch television. How annoying. In the past week, every few hours or so the light is turned off and then turned back on a few minutes later. The people that live there are pretty nice, a couple in their early 60s. I like to speculate that the wife thinks her husband is nuts for leaving this light on all night and so she turns it off and then he walks by and notices it off and turns it back on. When it's on and shinging at me, I'm sorely tempted to throw a rock at it to break it. Of course I'd never do that, but it's tempting. It's like a spotlight when you're on stage, that thing. The guy probably special ordered it.
Down the block, out of the view of my front window but I can see from my bedroom window, the lone decorated house on the block has its lights on every night. I love looking at Christmas lights, especially when the ground is covered in snow (not a ton yet, we're supposed to get more tonight). Last night, I think they forgot to turn off the lights and they burned until after 2 am (when I went to sleep). It was kind of nice to lay in bed in the dark and see the lights through my window.
I'm not going to have time to put up a tree this year. Between baking, the CD swap, my physical therapy and feeding my internet addiction, I just can't find the time. I'm kind of sad that I'm not doing it, but maybe next year I'll have a full-size tree. It's hard to believe Christmas is already so close. I still feel like Labor Day should be a long way off.
Work has picked up lately, which is awesome. It leaves less time for chatting between calls, but on the other hand it confirms my belief that the company just hired a butt load of people in the event of a strike and not, as the doomsayers were wont to say, a sign that customers were leaving the company in droves. Things will slow down again closer to Christmas, but that is NORMAL, which is comforting.
Down the block, out of the view of my front window but I can see from my bedroom window, the lone decorated house on the block has its lights on every night. I love looking at Christmas lights, especially when the ground is covered in snow (not a ton yet, we're supposed to get more tonight). Last night, I think they forgot to turn off the lights and they burned until after 2 am (when I went to sleep). It was kind of nice to lay in bed in the dark and see the lights through my window.
I'm not going to have time to put up a tree this year. Between baking, the CD swap, my physical therapy and feeding my internet addiction, I just can't find the time. I'm kind of sad that I'm not doing it, but maybe next year I'll have a full-size tree. It's hard to believe Christmas is already so close. I still feel like Labor Day should be a long way off.
Work has picked up lately, which is awesome. It leaves less time for chatting between calls, but on the other hand it confirms my belief that the company just hired a butt load of people in the event of a strike and not, as the doomsayers were wont to say, a sign that customers were leaving the company in droves. Things will slow down again closer to Christmas, but that is NORMAL, which is comforting.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
let's do some more touchin' up
I've blogged a few times (ok, that's an understatement) about my mom. Alas, dear reader, this is going to be another post about the lady who gave birth to me.
To say my mother had an unhappy childhood is putting it mildly. She was one of seven children of a drunk and a psycho. She cut off a lot of contact with her family when she started her own family with my dad, but still maintains some contact with them. As the child of a psycho and a drunk, she is not as bad as she could be. She loves her children and honestly believes that her motives are always pure when it comes to her relationships with her children.
We are not a family who shows affection very much. This makes me feel a huge disconnect between myself and my brothers and my parents. There is no casual touching of any form, no hugging or kissing. Everyone has their own personal space and GOD FORBID we ever invade it. My mother was not in a family of demonstrative affection either (in fact just the opposite as there was massive child abuse on both the part of her father and mother towards her and her siblings). And though she talks about how she wishes there had been more love in her childhood, that touching is important for showing people you care for how you feel, she is unable to express her love for her children through touch.
I'm not saying I want the woman to feel me up, I'm just saying that actual YEARS pass between any form of affection between us.
YEARS.
The other night, my mom was showing me a glass door that she had repaired for me on these built-in bookcases in my living room. She had promised me to get it fixed when I first moved into the house (they are original to the house - 1913) but never had gotten around to it. My Christmas present this year is the repair of these two glass doors. One is done already and my dad installed it while I was at work. I was looking at it, it's really nice, and I was saying all the right things: thank you, this is awesome, I so appreciate it blah blah blah.
Impulsively, I hugged my mom. The repair of these doors is more important to her than it is to me, and I wanted her to see that I really did appreciate it so I hugged her. She didn't push me away or anything, but she responded as a normal person would if a random stranger hugged them. Polite detachment.
And she wonders why I feel as if I can't stand to be with her for more than ten minutes at a time.
She gave birth to me. She is supposed to love me unconditionally. Yet the idea of touching me repulses her. How else am I supposed to feel?
Contrast that with the Gomez forum members I met two months ago in Chicago. With only a few exceptions, I was given bear hugs by these people who didn't know me from Adam and hadn't even seen a picture of me. Granted, there was a bit of intoxication and that tends to make people less inhibited, but still I felt more love from those people in those few short hours than I have felt from my own mother in quite a long time.
And now, of course, I feel guilty for resenting her. After all, she does a lot for me without being asked. I wouldn't be able to even have this house if it weren't for her and my dad and the support they give me. And I know she loves me. She is just incapable of showing it.
The worst part is that I can't explain this to her. I've tried. Without fail, she brushes off my feelings as ridiculous fantasies.
I have begged her to let go. She is controlling in every aspect of my life, when I try to exert independence, she turns on the guilt and I am helpless.
I cannot win ever.
I don't think I'll ever be free of her until she is dead. And that is sad to contemplate because despite it all, I love her.
If ever I am lucky enough to have children of my own, I don't know that I won't be just like her. I don't like it usually when people get too close, but for those I care about I wish I could break through that invisible barrier and be more affectionate. I always feel like I'm intruding on people's space, that they don't want me there if I get too close.
If you notice in the picture of me and Ben Ottewell, I am not touching him, I am not even leaning towards him. The girl who got a picture with him right before me put her arm over his shoulder and got in really close. There's other pictures floating around of me and the other members of Gomez at the after party, I didn't offer to shake hands or anything with them. I faintly remember tapping Tom on the shoulder to get his attention and the lovely (sarcasm) picture of he and I speaking (me telling him how amazing the show was), the expression on his face of disgust, well, that picture personifies my greatest fear when it comes to strangers meeting me for the first time. Thank you, Tom, for acting just like most people. Lots of people told me that of all the members of the band you would be the coolest no matter what I look like and while you were not the worst, your reaction to me was caught on film and not just in my memory.
Olly, though, Olly was cool. Olly seemed willing to talk to me all night. He wasn't ashamed to sit right down next to me like I was the most fascinating person in the world. And even more so, several people who I before that night knew only by screen names, they made that night the best night of my life. They grinned when they saw me, grabbed me up in their arms and hugged me as if it had been months seen we had seen each other and not just our first time meeting.
I still love Gomez, the experience of meeting them in person both increased and tainted my love for them. Now they are more real to me, less god-like. If all of them had acted like Tom and Ian, if the forum members had reacted to me as if I was some annoying freak I'm sure that I would have sworn off the band forever. Lucky for me, the experience was mostly positive and I'm looking forward to the next tour, hopefully meeting the ones I've met again and meeting others for the first time. In certain moods, I feel a little bit bitter when I hear Tom or Ian sing, but all I have to do is remember Olly and all the bad vibes from two-fifths of the band is erased.
That's some pretty powerful stuff, that whole being nice to people.
To say my mother had an unhappy childhood is putting it mildly. She was one of seven children of a drunk and a psycho. She cut off a lot of contact with her family when she started her own family with my dad, but still maintains some contact with them. As the child of a psycho and a drunk, she is not as bad as she could be. She loves her children and honestly believes that her motives are always pure when it comes to her relationships with her children.
We are not a family who shows affection very much. This makes me feel a huge disconnect between myself and my brothers and my parents. There is no casual touching of any form, no hugging or kissing. Everyone has their own personal space and GOD FORBID we ever invade it. My mother was not in a family of demonstrative affection either (in fact just the opposite as there was massive child abuse on both the part of her father and mother towards her and her siblings). And though she talks about how she wishes there had been more love in her childhood, that touching is important for showing people you care for how you feel, she is unable to express her love for her children through touch.
I'm not saying I want the woman to feel me up, I'm just saying that actual YEARS pass between any form of affection between us.
YEARS.
The other night, my mom was showing me a glass door that she had repaired for me on these built-in bookcases in my living room. She had promised me to get it fixed when I first moved into the house (they are original to the house - 1913) but never had gotten around to it. My Christmas present this year is the repair of these two glass doors. One is done already and my dad installed it while I was at work. I was looking at it, it's really nice, and I was saying all the right things: thank you, this is awesome, I so appreciate it blah blah blah.
Impulsively, I hugged my mom. The repair of these doors is more important to her than it is to me, and I wanted her to see that I really did appreciate it so I hugged her. She didn't push me away or anything, but she responded as a normal person would if a random stranger hugged them. Polite detachment.
And she wonders why I feel as if I can't stand to be with her for more than ten minutes at a time.
She gave birth to me. She is supposed to love me unconditionally. Yet the idea of touching me repulses her. How else am I supposed to feel?
Contrast that with the Gomez forum members I met two months ago in Chicago. With only a few exceptions, I was given bear hugs by these people who didn't know me from Adam and hadn't even seen a picture of me. Granted, there was a bit of intoxication and that tends to make people less inhibited, but still I felt more love from those people in those few short hours than I have felt from my own mother in quite a long time.
And now, of course, I feel guilty for resenting her. After all, she does a lot for me without being asked. I wouldn't be able to even have this house if it weren't for her and my dad and the support they give me. And I know she loves me. She is just incapable of showing it.
The worst part is that I can't explain this to her. I've tried. Without fail, she brushes off my feelings as ridiculous fantasies.
I have begged her to let go. She is controlling in every aspect of my life, when I try to exert independence, she turns on the guilt and I am helpless.
I cannot win ever.
I don't think I'll ever be free of her until she is dead. And that is sad to contemplate because despite it all, I love her.
If ever I am lucky enough to have children of my own, I don't know that I won't be just like her. I don't like it usually when people get too close, but for those I care about I wish I could break through that invisible barrier and be more affectionate. I always feel like I'm intruding on people's space, that they don't want me there if I get too close.
If you notice in the picture of me and Ben Ottewell, I am not touching him, I am not even leaning towards him. The girl who got a picture with him right before me put her arm over his shoulder and got in really close. There's other pictures floating around of me and the other members of Gomez at the after party, I didn't offer to shake hands or anything with them. I faintly remember tapping Tom on the shoulder to get his attention and the lovely (sarcasm) picture of he and I speaking (me telling him how amazing the show was), the expression on his face of disgust, well, that picture personifies my greatest fear when it comes to strangers meeting me for the first time. Thank you, Tom, for acting just like most people. Lots of people told me that of all the members of the band you would be the coolest no matter what I look like and while you were not the worst, your reaction to me was caught on film and not just in my memory.
Olly, though, Olly was cool. Olly seemed willing to talk to me all night. He wasn't ashamed to sit right down next to me like I was the most fascinating person in the world. And even more so, several people who I before that night knew only by screen names, they made that night the best night of my life. They grinned when they saw me, grabbed me up in their arms and hugged me as if it had been months seen we had seen each other and not just our first time meeting.
I still love Gomez, the experience of meeting them in person both increased and tainted my love for them. Now they are more real to me, less god-like. If all of them had acted like Tom and Ian, if the forum members had reacted to me as if I was some annoying freak I'm sure that I would have sworn off the band forever. Lucky for me, the experience was mostly positive and I'm looking forward to the next tour, hopefully meeting the ones I've met again and meeting others for the first time. In certain moods, I feel a little bit bitter when I hear Tom or Ian sing, but all I have to do is remember Olly and all the bad vibes from two-fifths of the band is erased.
That's some pretty powerful stuff, that whole being nice to people.
Monday, November 17, 2008
weekend update (with neither seth NOR amy)
Saturday morning I went with my mom to a big sale at an appliance store. She had been complaining for months that her washing machine was on its last legs. My dad was OK with her getting a new one, but my mom cannot seem to make a decision on anything on her own. We looked at a lot of different washer/dryer sets and I convinced her to buy one she really seemed to like that was easily $1000 less than it would have been if she had just bought it last week somewhere else. After about an hour of walking around looking at washers in this huge warehouse, she was exhausted and had me fill out the financing form for her. Then, we had to go stand in line to actually pay for it and schedule delivery.
We finally left the place two hours after we got there. It was not an unpleasant experience but there were two significant things: the first is that I managed to walk all over this huge warehouse for two hours and was neither tired nor had any back pain whatsoever. The second is that I got flashes of what it is going to be like taking care of my mom in her old age. She's only 57 and she is getting more and more reliant on me to do things for her. Most of the time I don't mind, but I can just imagine that 10 years from now she will be a constant drain on my time.
Today, I slept really really late. I fell asleep around 1:00 am on the couch and woke up at 8:30 to go use the bathroom. I laid back down in bed and woke up again at 12:30. I barely got anything done today, which is annoying because with the shopping yesterday and hanging out with my niece the rest of the day, I didn't get much done at all yesterday either.
If I ever get to the point where I have to care for my mother, I am so hiring a cleaning lady. And getting a dishwasher.
In just another week or so my post-work 90 minutes of physical therapy shit (and 90 minutes each weekend day too) will be blissfully over. Really, it's more like two to two and a half hours worth of crap that is annoying and means seemingly endless hours spent with my mom. I love the woman dearly but when she's already spending so much time at my house to assist me with the therapy, I don't think it's too much to ask that I not spend an hour a day on the phone with her on the weekends. She gets so offended when I'm like "yeah, uh huh, hm" on the phone with her and then finally cut in with "Can we talk about this in an hour when you're coming over? I have shit to do."
I recently discovered the blog Unclutterer through a friend on the Gomez board. It's a nice, short daily blog with tips to get organized. As I am perpetually unorganized, this blog is right up my alley. I will be listing it on my links at right tomorrow as I am lazy and need to get to bed. They mentioned on there that there's a current deal for 20 percent off any purchase at thecontainerstore.com which is awesome (with a code you can get from Oprah's website). I went to the site just to see what they have and found you can buy clothes hangers by the case. Yeah, I have no money, but I've been living in this house for three years and have about 30 hangers total. I ordered two cases. They end up being about $0.30 per hanger with the discount and the shipping is pretty reasonable. I am finally going to be able to hang up my clothes!
For Christmas, we are buying my niece and nephew new bedding for their bedrooms. They each picked out a set they liked out of the J C Penney catalog and I ordered it online for them. I was looking around on the site and found a nice artificial Christmas tree that I liked, it was a slim tree (the type I need for where I can put a tree), full sized and only costs $90. I very nearly bought it, but I held off because I am going to use that $90 towards a new computer. I have finally accepted that the desktop computer that I have (that was a piece of crap three years ago when I got it from my parents) has nearly hit its breaking point. I don't dare load another song from iTunes on it lest it explode and delete everything. I've been shopping around online for a cheap desktop with enough memory to run Vista (my laptop runs Vista and I like it well enough but it does not have enough memory to run Vista as it should be run). I don't have the money to join the Apple fan club as much as I would like to. My sister-in-law's sister is a retired military computer person who built a computer for my brother's family a few years ago. I asked my sis-in-law to ask her sister how much it would cost to build me one. And how soon it could be done because I have a CD swap to coordinate.
OK, enough randomness. I am going to go attempt to sleep now.
We finally left the place two hours after we got there. It was not an unpleasant experience but there were two significant things: the first is that I managed to walk all over this huge warehouse for two hours and was neither tired nor had any back pain whatsoever. The second is that I got flashes of what it is going to be like taking care of my mom in her old age. She's only 57 and she is getting more and more reliant on me to do things for her. Most of the time I don't mind, but I can just imagine that 10 years from now she will be a constant drain on my time.
Today, I slept really really late. I fell asleep around 1:00 am on the couch and woke up at 8:30 to go use the bathroom. I laid back down in bed and woke up again at 12:30. I barely got anything done today, which is annoying because with the shopping yesterday and hanging out with my niece the rest of the day, I didn't get much done at all yesterday either.
If I ever get to the point where I have to care for my mother, I am so hiring a cleaning lady. And getting a dishwasher.
In just another week or so my post-work 90 minutes of physical therapy shit (and 90 minutes each weekend day too) will be blissfully over. Really, it's more like two to two and a half hours worth of crap that is annoying and means seemingly endless hours spent with my mom. I love the woman dearly but when she's already spending so much time at my house to assist me with the therapy, I don't think it's too much to ask that I not spend an hour a day on the phone with her on the weekends. She gets so offended when I'm like "yeah, uh huh, hm" on the phone with her and then finally cut in with "Can we talk about this in an hour when you're coming over? I have shit to do."
I recently discovered the blog Unclutterer through a friend on the Gomez board. It's a nice, short daily blog with tips to get organized. As I am perpetually unorganized, this blog is right up my alley. I will be listing it on my links at right tomorrow as I am lazy and need to get to bed. They mentioned on there that there's a current deal for 20 percent off any purchase at thecontainerstore.com which is awesome (with a code you can get from Oprah's website). I went to the site just to see what they have and found you can buy clothes hangers by the case. Yeah, I have no money, but I've been living in this house for three years and have about 30 hangers total. I ordered two cases. They end up being about $0.30 per hanger with the discount and the shipping is pretty reasonable. I am finally going to be able to hang up my clothes!
For Christmas, we are buying my niece and nephew new bedding for their bedrooms. They each picked out a set they liked out of the J C Penney catalog and I ordered it online for them. I was looking around on the site and found a nice artificial Christmas tree that I liked, it was a slim tree (the type I need for where I can put a tree), full sized and only costs $90. I very nearly bought it, but I held off because I am going to use that $90 towards a new computer. I have finally accepted that the desktop computer that I have (that was a piece of crap three years ago when I got it from my parents) has nearly hit its breaking point. I don't dare load another song from iTunes on it lest it explode and delete everything. I've been shopping around online for a cheap desktop with enough memory to run Vista (my laptop runs Vista and I like it well enough but it does not have enough memory to run Vista as it should be run). I don't have the money to join the Apple fan club as much as I would like to. My sister-in-law's sister is a retired military computer person who built a computer for my brother's family a few years ago. I asked my sis-in-law to ask her sister how much it would cost to build me one. And how soon it could be done because I have a CD swap to coordinate.
OK, enough randomness. I am going to go attempt to sleep now.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
always late to the party
Can you believe that I, a total political junkie, never watched a single episode of The West Wing when it was on? In my defense, I was a senior in college when it started and therefore did not have any time to watch an hour-long drama every week. A colleague at work recommended I see it a few weeks ago and I was all "Yeah, yeah, I'll add it to my Netflix queue." Then it turns out that the Bravo network started the series over again, two episodes a day, starting this past Monday. He told me about it Monday afternoon and so I set up my DVR to tape it the next day.
Well, now I'm hooked.
Damnit.
I suppose this will replace the three hour baseball games that were my obsession throughout the summer. The downside is that unlike in the summer, there are actual television shows currently airing that I want to watch.
I watch too much television, I know that. Compared to three years ago, however, I watch a lot less. I used to tape so much that I would be sometimes weeks behind on shows. I own two DVRs because there are three shows on television on Thursday night that I want to watch that all air at the exact same time: Grey's Anatomy, CSI and The Office. I could cut CSI from that, but considering I've already cut the other two CSI shows, I just don't think I can get through the week without my fix of the macabre. (In my defense regarding the two DVRs: the promo at the time was free standard DVR. I have a high-def TV and so I had to purchase the high-Def DVR anyway, so why not take the standard DVR and hook it up to my old TV in another room?)
Last night, my mom was over and I had nothing to watch except old West Wing episodes (watching them this afternoon while doing laundry) so we put it on the Food Network. Every show was about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is great, but I'm not that huge a fan in general. Now, of course, I'm craving the meal like mad after watching all that food porn.
At work, someone tried to organize at a team-level a Thanksgiving-themed food day. I led the resistance because I'm just fine with one Thanksgiving meal per year and I didn't feel like having a huge, calorie-laden meal less than a week before I'm already planning to have one. I wasn't alone, but I was the most vocal. The biggest objectors came from people who have to, because of divorce or marriage, attend more than one meal. As if they really want a third meal in that case. The guy pushing for it is a real control-freak and was absolutely not open to anyone else's ideas.
Then, the company announces that they are getting each team a turkey and two pumpkin pies so now the entire office is having a Thanksgiving-themed food day.
I cannot win.
I'm bringing mashed potatoes.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
this isn't about yelling, this isn't about politics, it's about the human heart
I agree with this man's statement 100%. I know that most of you who look at this blog have probably already seen this, but for those of you who have not, please watch this. Open your mind.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Blogging = free therapy
I've been blogging for pretty close to a year now, in various forms. I started on My Space, then branched out to this blog spot and a private journal on live journal. My private journal is more for myself to write about things that I'm feeling that would mortify me to be discovered by people I know in real life. This blog I view more as a place to post interesting links and/or stuff that's going on in my life that is not private. I never thought I would ever even join one social network, let alone two or that I would ever find any sort of psychological release in writing about my (extremely boring) life.
The Internet is amazing. It has so much possibility. If I need to know the name of an actor I see on television, I can just go to www.imdb.com and find him. If I need to know where to find a fresh free-range turkey for my family's Thanksgiving, I can just go to www.google.com and find a place to buy one. I faintly remember a time before the Internet, when information available to me at a moment's notice was only stored in my brain. I can't imagine what the world would be like without all of this information available at the touch of a few buttons. And how quaint will people think we were 100 years from now. Maybe Obama's election has gotten me hopeful about the future.
The bad thing about all this electronic communication is that interaction with others is somewhat more remote and easily open to misinterpretation. Last night, my mom and I had practically a knock-down drag-out fight over my misinterpretation of a joke that she e-mailed me at work yesterday. She couldn't understand why I didn't just know she was being jokey in the statement and I had trouble explaining to my mom about netiquette. (off-topic: I find it hilarious that the spell check in Firefox recognizes "netiquette" but not Obama but Blogspot's spell check does recognize Obama - yay progress!) On Tuesday, I made what I thought was a witty comment on a picture on Facebook and I ended up offending the person. Today on Facebook, a friend commented that I needed to change my profile pic from the "Vote for Change" Obama/Biden image, that I should go back to my old profile pic (the same one here) which is me and Ben Ottewell. Another friend commented that she'd rather look at Obama. My first response to that was Well, fuck YOU if you don't want to look at me but I took a deep breath, counted to ten and realized that she probably meant that she likes looking at Obama. He's pretty good looking, for a president. ;)
A good friend of mine currently does not have reliable Internet access and she and I have started talking on the phone a few hours a week to keep in touch. And it's NICE. She and I have chatted for hours before online and I felt like we were pretty good friends but lately with chatting on the phone with her, I feel even closer to her. It's amazing what hearing some one's voice versus reading words on a screen does for human relationships.
So, as much as I am an Internet addict, I guess I've come to the realization that it is not a complete replacement for getting out there and interacting with people. I've had the song Ask by the Smiths (find it on YouTube, it's an excellent song - again with the instant gratification!) stuck in my head while typing this, specifically the line: "Shyness is nice but shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to".
It's true. And it has a beat you could dance to. :)
The Internet is amazing. It has so much possibility. If I need to know the name of an actor I see on television, I can just go to www.imdb.com and find him. If I need to know where to find a fresh free-range turkey for my family's Thanksgiving, I can just go to www.google.com and find a place to buy one. I faintly remember a time before the Internet, when information available to me at a moment's notice was only stored in my brain. I can't imagine what the world would be like without all of this information available at the touch of a few buttons. And how quaint will people think we were 100 years from now. Maybe Obama's election has gotten me hopeful about the future.
The bad thing about all this electronic communication is that interaction with others is somewhat more remote and easily open to misinterpretation. Last night, my mom and I had practically a knock-down drag-out fight over my misinterpretation of a joke that she e-mailed me at work yesterday. She couldn't understand why I didn't just know she was being jokey in the statement and I had trouble explaining to my mom about netiquette. (off-topic: I find it hilarious that the spell check in Firefox recognizes "netiquette" but not Obama but Blogspot's spell check does recognize Obama - yay progress!) On Tuesday, I made what I thought was a witty comment on a picture on Facebook and I ended up offending the person. Today on Facebook, a friend commented that I needed to change my profile pic from the "Vote for Change" Obama/Biden image, that I should go back to my old profile pic (the same one here) which is me and Ben Ottewell. Another friend commented that she'd rather look at Obama. My first response to that was Well, fuck YOU if you don't want to look at me but I took a deep breath, counted to ten and realized that she probably meant that she likes looking at Obama. He's pretty good looking, for a president. ;)
A good friend of mine currently does not have reliable Internet access and she and I have started talking on the phone a few hours a week to keep in touch. And it's NICE. She and I have chatted for hours before online and I felt like we were pretty good friends but lately with chatting on the phone with her, I feel even closer to her. It's amazing what hearing some one's voice versus reading words on a screen does for human relationships.
So, as much as I am an Internet addict, I guess I've come to the realization that it is not a complete replacement for getting out there and interacting with people. I've had the song Ask by the Smiths (find it on YouTube, it's an excellent song - again with the instant gratification!) stuck in my head while typing this, specifically the line: "Shyness is nice but shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life you'd like to".
It's true. And it has a beat you could dance to. :)
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