OH NO!!

My plans have all gone awry! The Aveda institute doesn't have either salon or spa services on Mondays!

Argh!!

Quick! Suggestions for fun for me to do today with my (birth)day off and nobody else having the day off!

This entry deserves bad clip art.

Head falls forward onto the desk with a THUMP.

I guess I've been extremely lucky, but I've not had a cold knock me on my ass like this in at least a couple of years. I woke up yesterday morning at 8:30. I'd had ~8-9 hours of sleep. I went back to bed at 9 and slept until 11:30. Then at 1 p.m. I went to sleep again, until 5. Then I crashed out at about 9 p.m. last night and slept until 6 a.m. today. Ouch.

I'm feeling really, really ranty today. Part of it is because I'm sick.

I'm annoyed, though, too. Lemme try to tell you about it without incriminating/identifying any other people involved.

Saturday evening I walked out of a party after being reminded that DRAMA is something I avoid.

Background: I was looking forward to having a good time, having perfected my Lucy Van Pelt costume. But then I lost my keys. And getting to this party was a comedy of errors: First I got stuck on the grocery store line where people were writing checks and having to call the freaking manager every two seconds (twice on one order! And there were no other lanes open! 20 minutes to buy a bag of ice!) Then I got behind people going 20 mph in a 45, caught every single light, and was unable to stop sweating from the tizzy I had when I lost my keys. I arrived late, disheveled, frustrated and stressed. I was mad at myself, and also feeling like crap physically.

Here's the really bad part, the part I've not confessed to y'all. Some of you know this a little, and others have no idea. But for the last, oh, month or so, maybe longer, I've been slipping up on the "I don't smoke" part of my identity. Oops. No wait--that's not enough emphasis.

OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!

Better.

It began with alcohol, as these sorts of things often do, and I wasn't too terribly worried. But then it began to get worse. A couple of personal disappointments, and I'd bum a cig from the neighbor. A couple of beers out and I'd bum from a stranger. At one point I bought a pack, smoked a couple and gave it away. Then I bought two packs--BOGO. I smoked a couple, and figured I'd give the pack to the neighbor. But I didn't. Not immediately.

Do you see where this is going? Well this weekend I was bound and determined to make sure that I didn't continue let myself slip into a pattern that I really, really didn't want. So I said to myself that no matter what, I was not going to smoke Saturday night.

And then in that long line at the grocery store, after losing my keys and having to put up with asinine grocery staff, I bought a pack. And smoked a couple on the way to the party.

So add extremely disappointed in myself to the list of things I was feeling when I arrived.

I sat away from other people for a minute, hoping that I could just brush the pissyness off. I saw a friend, probably the only one there that I feel really close to, and called the friend over. The friend was getting their partner a beer but said they'd stop back in just a second. The friend returned, and a few seconds later the partner showed up. I explained a little bit about why I was frazzled, and then the partner looked at me and said:

"You realize you're a smoker again, don't you Stew? You might as well just admit it."

I was flabbergasted. That is the LAST thing I needed to hear--extremely hurtful. I just stared.

"I mean, you'd rather I straight up tell you the truth than lie to you, right?"

I just stared again. Then I walked into the other room. I sat there, seething. What the FUCK? Why did this person decide that was an appropriate thing to say? Did they think it would somehow be HELPFUL to kick me in the stomach? Within a few moments, the person came to find me.

"I'm sorry Stew, I didn't know that was a sore point." (Um....yes you did--I've known you for how many years?)

Drama Person tried to back out but none of the explanations were flying with me. It boiled down to Drama Person being hateful because of someone else not meeting Drama person's needs.

This isn't the first time I've dealt with similar issues. I've decided to avoid Drama Person as best I can.

No good, very bad day

SO!

In addition to my tooth woes, which continue, I also had the honor of having my power cut off yesterday. No, that's not embarassing at ALL!

I've been having problems with the power company for about the last 6 months, since the transition from Evil Roommate. First they both didn't send me a bill AND wouldn't allow me to log in to my account. I tried several times without success, and as I am wont to do, didn't follow up. Until the phone call. The phone call threatening loss of service. I paid over the phone, and while on there managed to regain access to my account. I promptly forgot about it because...Problem solved, in theory.

The deeper problem, though, is my seeming inability to remember important things like paying this bill. Rent? No prob. Gas bill? No prob? Phone? No prob. Internet? No prob.

Water? Prob, occasionally, because it's city water and they bill at odd times--every other month. You can pay online, but you can't set up autopay.

Electricity? Obviously a problem, because I embarassed myself when my roommate called to ask why we didn't have power. I slept without airconditioning or a fan on. I got dressed and showered by candlelight. I went to bed pre-9:00 p.m.

Y'all...in my defense, they have NOT BILLED ME.

I eventually figured out the second problem is that they've been sending bills to a defunct email address for the last 6 months. It's NO wonder I've not paid! I need, need, need a reminder. And getting a bill is the reminder I need. No paper bill, no e-bill, no phone, no knock on my door. Nothing.

Just...BOOM. No power.

I know part of this is my own fault. But damnit, work with me.

Pant pant pant pant!

HELP!

I have about 12 mosquito bites that I am trying valiantly not to scratch, after having taken a hairbrush to them.

IT'S EXCRUCIATING!

Holy shit shit shit shit shit shit....

Soon the benadryl will have knocked me out. I can't wait.

Diagnostic Help Wanted

If I have to keep picking my tomatoes when barely pink in order to stop the evil little varmints that are taking bites out of them, I will soon kill someone.

Granted, my tactic so far has been one of distraction; I don't love my patio tomatoes (Extreme Bush variety, which is at least my favorite name), so they've become the martyrs.

I'm going to think out loud here for a minute. In an urban setting, what creatures are available that would take one bite out of a ripening tomato and then move on to the next to do the same? More information: some tomatoes are in a raised bed (1 foot up), and some are in containers (2 feet off the ground). Green tomatoes don't get attacked (yet). The riper the tomato, the more likely they will be attacked. Tomatoes that are lower on the plant are more likely to be bitten, but height doesn't seem to be a total deterrent. About 75% of the affected tomatoes are lower than most. The bottoms are usually, though not always, the area of first entry. When I leave the tomatoes on the vine, they'll be eaten little by little. When I take them off and put them on top of the compost pile, they're ignored and left to rot. Other veggies have not been affected. This includes: yellow squash, cantaloupe, peppers, cucumbers, greens, beets, and beans.

These are my guesses:
1) Rabbits.
2) Squirrels
3) Birds

If 1) then some chicken wire will help, especially if combined with cayenne. If 2), then it seems only cayenne would potentially help. I say potentially because it eventually stopped working with my birdfeeders and so I've stopped filling them. If 3), then I might get a blow-up Owl.

What's your opinion? What is it, and what should I do?

Ahhhhhhh

Yesterday I turned on my PDA only to find that the screen was so dim as to be barely legible.

Fuuuuuck. It's the only way I maintain some kind of handle on my schedule. I never got the hang of a paper organizer, and with my bad memory I HAVE to have some place to record everything that I do or plan to do. Otherwise I'll call a person twice for the same reason, not even realizing I'd already done that.

(That's normal, right?)

I'm still recovering from my extended period of no income* so the thought of shelling out money for another PDA is kind of appalling to me. Luckily I have very basic needs: a) it needs a calendar, and b) it needs to sync somewhere on my computer.

After about 20 minutes identifying what the superbasic-est, most cheaply available PDA would be for me, I did a price search.

Jeepers!** It's like, $100!

So I remembered that at one point I had had a brainstorm (which I would have entered onto my to-do list to follow up on, if my damn PDA had worked at the time) that I should be doing some trouble shooting about the situation, just in case the PDA wasn't really dying.

(It was a long-shot, borne of utter frugality)

Fixed.

Phew!


*aside: remember my glee at filing various and sundry insurance claims and health savings account expenses? Yeah. I didn't bank on them BEING REJECTED.

**Who knew? Etymology is fuuuun.

Crrrrrrrrap!

Um...I bet you're as sick of my whining as I am of feeling like whining. That said, this is day way-too-many-in-a-row of This Sucks.

I almost wept for real in a role play at the training today, where I was playing a women with an intellectual disability* who had to tell her mother about the breast lump she had found. The woman playing my mom, an older, rural African-American woman, was way too empathetic ("It's okay, baby, we'll go to Dr. Jones's and you'll be good."), which almost made me lose it right there.

*This is apparently the new term for what more recently called "developmental disability" and prior to that "mental retardation".

*****
In other news, my mattress edges out from the back wall during the night, leaving a space perfect for me to lose my pillow and/or Snoopy.

*****

Finally, I don't really feel like saying anything. So I might go quiet for a bit.

WHY??

Driving home after work today I began to feel vomitous, to the point where I decided to speed quite egregiously to get home more quickly. I've been in bed since then, and I decided to eat whatever the f*!$# I felt like I could stomach. That was a couple Maria cookies and some milk. The cookies are not local, but at least they went down and stayed there. What I really want now is to just fall asleep.

I wonder if the sausage tasting gross to me in the field peas is related to my feeling now like I'm going to puke?

Nah. Probably some virus. But I'm NOT going to eat that anymore.

excuse me my tummy rumbles now bye

Soy Ploy

I got these free in the mail yesterday. I was supposed to, via their marketing instructions, "spread the Soyjoy" by eating one and giving two away. It's better for them that I ate two and plan to toss the third.

Blech. Why I even finished the first makes me scratch my head. Let's blame it on my being hungry and not very....awake. They're sour and bland at the same time, with a texture kind of like an extruded, soft-in-a-bad-way, tightly-"crumbed" biscotto. (Yes, I went there.)

p.s. don't let cheap mangos get overripe. They lose both the tang and the sweet, becoming just bland. Or maybe that's because they had to ripen here at home rather than at ALL on the tree.

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter

Whoa. This is really stupid, and yet I've been hoping to run across it for months now. When I walk I sometimes chant along to this.
Now I'm kind of bummed, though.

Status Quo

Things that make me feel better, temporarily

Burned pretzels
Smoked cheese
Herbal tea

Looking at that list makes me think I should try some lapsang souchong.

SUNday

I don't feel well. I have worms.

Wait. That came out totally wrong. Let me regroup and start again...

:::clearing throat::: Ahem!

I picked up the worms for my worm bin from the fabulously generous and supercool JeniQ today. I was kind of quiet, because somewhere on the way to Jeni's house I began to feel kind of ill. Almost as though I had a stomach virus.

I stopped at Supermercado León on the way home, because I felt I would DIE without some kind of fruit juice and/or frozen sustenence. I got home, did the minimal amount of work needed to keep the worms alive and happy, and crawled into bed. It's weird to have it so nice out but to feel so gross. The Italian ice I picked up has been hitting the spot, too. I considered getting some Cheerwine or SunDrop sherbet instead, but the mango and piña colada ices are probably the best way to go.

So I'll tell more about the little vermis, but a day by the pool with too much beer and too much sun apparently really did me in yesterday. Back to bed for me.

I'll still have the worms tomorrow.

OK, so maybe I used to be Sneezy...

I've been sitting here in front of the almost blank screen, trying to figure out what to say. I'm in a funk. There's way too much drama in my life, currently. Even my therapist was bitchy to me yesterday. Ok, she was just short with me about not having a free appointment time this week, but still. Not what I needed!

I have very little interest in interacting with people, recently. Sometimes I think I'd be better off moving to a VERY isolated parcel of land and doing it all myself. 100% self-sustaining. Get some dogs for warmth and companionship, and make sure that I have internet somehow, so I don't feel a total loss of connection to other people.

Actually, a total loss of connection sounds pretty damn good right about now.

I suppose it COULD get worse...

Yeah, so here's the scoop. I have a situation on my hands that needs resolving, and it has escalated in the last 24 hours. It's so bad that I can't even talk about it on the blog. I'm not being paranoid, and I'm only being slightly dramatic. It's not medical. I'm reasonably safe. It's just going to be messy. Whew.

Note that I've disabled comments on this post. I don't want discussion on the record about what the deal might be. Email me or give me a call if you want, though.

Oh, I can't let a posting go by without talking about hair. The hair option of the day is a wash/condition only the very ends/airdry combination to begin. Then, 5 hours after the shower, I've put in a sprinkling of baking soda, per one reader's suggestion. We'll see how that works. So far my hair was shiny in a good way, pre-baking soda, and is not much different after.

I think I'll end up like the clown up there! Anyone up for driving me to Dorothea Dix if I lose it before this blows over*? I'd like to avoid an ambulance charge, THANKS!!

I'm going out to see Volver shortly with Michele, so I'll be out for the evening.

*Please don't misunderstand. I am in no way even close to desiring or needing acute mental health care. In fact, I'm very, very strong right now, even though I'm also in a crap place, if that makes sense. I suppose I wrote that because the situation is very, very shitty, so I made a bad joke about a serious topic. Nothing like an offensive joke that hits slightly too close to home, is there?

Not just a miniseries or Canadian clothing brand

There's been both progress and frustration on the garden front, kiddos. As I've mentioned, I've been trying to build up a small stock of basic garden tools. As a way to try to meet that goal without breaking the bank, I'm using a couple of services I've known about for some time, but have not played around with too much before. First, I signed up for Freecycle, both the group for my county and the one for the county I used to live in. (There's a whole post about my experiences so far with Freecycle...I'll refrain from going into the interesting details for now). And, since my time is somewhat open, I also cruise Craigslist. Oh wait, not that kind of cruise. Nope. I look at the classifieds, concentrating on the Free category, but delving into Tools and Household as well.

Craigslist has not panned out, but I squealed with joy (on the inside) when an email came through from Freecycle offering "misc. gardening stuff". Tools were what I was after, but I was not being picky. I walked out with a garden rake, a flat bladed shovel, and a whole slew of other crap. Pots galore, lots of weed killer (which I have no idea how to use, cause wouldn't it poison your food through the soil?), insecticidal soap, sprayer bottles, gardening gloves, and a couple of tools that don't have handles. I think I can get handles though.

So that done, I set about yesterday to do a slew of work. I felt buoyed by the knowledge that Freecycle had come through at least a little bit. Here's where the bulk of the progress and also frustration comes in.

I dug up a little bit more of the bed I've been working on, and raked over it to level the ground. All good so far, except that I know I need to prep the soil with some compost. I'm trying not to buy anything I don't absolutely have to, so I went over to the compost bin to see how things were cooking along. The only compost that's actually ready is at the very bottom of the bin, which is not readily accessible. So I decided that the best course of action would be to take the bin apart and flip the pile. That helps things break down faster anyway, and I'm all about quick results. I'll be flipping more often now, because roots had invaded from the ground.

I felt like an archaeologist. The pile from inside the bin was layered, and my kitchen scrap additions were not so decomposed. I relived the meals of the past few months, and felt new guilt at the food that had gone dodgy before I remembered to eat it. Among the remnants: two entirely intact additions in the form of an apple and a potato. I had added those whole before it occurred to me that I'd speed the process along if I'd just go ahead and cut the things up. Stomping on the apple and potato and tossing them back into the bin was really fun. I might have even said "Hi-YAH!" Not that I'd admit to that, of course.

The really fun part though is that at the very bottom of the pile I got to see what the former tenants contributed to the pile. As I scooped up this layer, which was the only layer that actually seemed to be compost, I came across all sorts of fun things. They ate a lot of brown eggs; the shells were not entirely decomposed, but you can tell that they had leached some of their goodness into the soil from how fragile they now are. Peach pits, avocado pits, a corncob, a spoon, a shoelace and some plastic containers were the other survivors. The not-yet-broken-down-but-they-will-eventually pieces got tossed back into the bin. The others are lying beside the shed.

Wow. That's really a lot of talk about compost. Nobody ever said I was entertaining.

More progress: I have begun seedlings: peas and sorrel. They're cooking inside on the kitchen table, in the sunniest part of the house I could find.

Pretty good, hm? Well, don't worry there's always a balance, you know?

The bad news is that I really don't think the garden plot I've been basing THIS WHOLE GARDEN ON is even usable. I pushed aside the leaves I'd been using to mulch the plot with over the winter, yay new rake!! I figured I could go ahead and turn the soil now, so that when the peas had sprouted I'd be ready to just shove them into spots and hope for the best. Nuh-uh. There's only about 2 inches of topsoil before you hit a dense root system for the invasive yet gorgeous Mimosa tree that sits nearby. And on top of that problem, it seems that the proximity of the plot to the driveway means that there's a goodly amount of gravel thrown in. Roots, y'all, roots. And gravel. I moved on.

I think I'll be making another bed. If I can't use that plot, I'm going to be hard-pressed to dig up enough spaces for me to be able to plant everything I had intended to. I'm pouting. Literally, which in this case does not mean figuratively, like most people mean when they say 'literally' (It's literally raining cats and dogs). No, my bottom lip is poking out and the brow, it's furrowed. I can't furrow 2 inches of soil.

************
On hair:

Wow, I never expected such a throw-away complaint could yield such comment results! Woo hoo!

I went with no conditioner at all yesterday. Extremely hard to comb out. Despite great care, I lost a lot more into my brush than I was comfortable with. To top it off, it's still greasy this morning at my hairline. (Roots)

Luckily my friends have my back. I got an email from Michele first thing this morning:

I got a haircut last night and talked to my hairdresser about your greasy hair. She said it could be a number of things, from a hormone change to the change in water (which could take a while to show up.) She suggested trying a clarifying shampoo or mixing 1tsp of baking soda into your shampoo and washing your hair with that. She said that should make sure it's clean- it may not be rinsing out as well as you think.

So I'll be taking the Arm and Hammer into the bath today. Report to come. Thanks for being my cat sleuths.

p.s. All's I wanted to do was to make a blog quote. Blogger threw in the damn big quote marks. Sillies.

Boy howdy

I didn't go out last night at all. I missed both Crazy John's party and the benefit. Earlier, I was really excited, but then when the time came I just lay on the bed with the laptop on my stomach reading Fark. (Now, THAT is bad!) I also ate my weight in spinach pie and some less-healthy foodstuffs as well.

That "Maybe I just don't need to leave the house" thing is rearing its head again, I'm afraid. So in just a second I'm going to go birding for the first time in a month. It's NOT COOL to leave aside the things you like! So yeah. I hope I see something new out there this morning.

I think I just figured out in part why I didn't go out last night. I was afraid. I was afraid I'd run into people at the benefit that would ask me what I'm doing and I'd have to respond that "Oh, no, I'm not working. What a blast!" John's would have been different. Less pressure and all. But still, the thought of facing so many people I don't know overruled the guilt I knew I'd feel if I didn't go. But at least I don't think I was missed.

Related: I have a trick to help when I feel self-conscious about x issue in my life (body, intelligence, job, awkwardness, not going to a party and feeling guilty about it). I try to remember that despite MY concentration on everything about myself that could be found lacking, other people aren't so fascinated in me and probably aren't thinking twice about the things that worry me. And then I say, you know what? They're probably so caught up in their own shit that they aren't even considering how *I* may have messed up. Cut yourself a break, Stew!

Unfortunately that technique was not enough to get me out last night.

Move along...nothing to see here. Just some inconsequential dreck about my failings. And a simmering concern that not only is this entry stupidly uninteresting to other people who may read here, but also that it will prompt people to be all "It's OK! You're a winner! People value you!" which will make my teeth fall out.

My brow is knit. Or is it knitted? Eh.

Insecurity sucks.

What a sham

Not to sound TOO angsty* today or anything, but in addition to being frustrated with losing my jacket, I have failed YET AGAIN to find a freaking bedskirt.

It's not that hard. Really. I want it to fit these characteristics:
• Tailored, not frilly
• Off white or white. Maybe even floor-colored
• NOT patterned. Texture might be OK.
• Queen-sized
• Not a budget buster
• Sold separately

There is no such combination in stores. Even at a budget busting price I can't find what I am looking for.

I'm sick of looking at the boxsprings.

*Can one really be angsty about fabrics?

RIP Parka

Woe is me. Somehow in the last week I lost my new coat. Did I leave it with any of y'all? Do you remember seeing it? It was a pinky/purple and white, Columbia brand, hooded, short, ski-jacket. I was going to use it for winter birding and now I have nothing warm. I called everywhere I can think of where I might have worn it, but nobody knows...