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Great Party!

Thanks to everyone who came out last night! A good time was had by all with no puking, breakage, nudity or drama. W00t!

The official Chops contest winners:

  • First Prize: Ms Stormy with cardboard mutton chops of the meaty variety
  • Second Prize: Barry and Kalyn with prosthetic chops of the felt and wire variety (can also double as ears if needed!)
  • Third Prize: Ms Kate with bought in the train station in England Elvis chops of the fur variety
  • Honorable mention to Ms Emily for Sparkliest chops
  • Honorable mention to Ms Heather for stick on Lamb Chops for those without chops

The only casualty would be Sonya’s shoes which disintegrated all over my floors all night before she discovered that the soles were breaking to pieces. Hmm, interesting that this didn’t come to light until after she’d had a few! Har!  :-) It did explain the mysterious black stuff that I’d been picking up all night!

I was up too late. I really didn’t want to be up until 5am, but we had a couple of stragglers that didn’t want to leave, but didn’t want to sleep over, either, so we ended being up until 5am instead. Bleh. Today is shot. No work will get done for me. Nick is faring a bit better than I am, but not by much. I’m tired and still crampy. And now it’ll take me 3 days to get my sleep straightened out – just in time for DragonCon. Yay. Ugh. In addition, we’re on deadline for some php work and we’ve got a client that is needing help today. Great. ::sigh:: I’m getting too old for this shit.

Nonetheless, it was a fun party and I’m glad everyone came out!  :-)

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Bimodal Sleep

So, that’s what it is! LOL I’ve always called it INSOMNIA.

I’m back to the “wake up between 3-4am every night” thing again.  I really wish it was something as simple as smoking too much or drinking too much or whatever, but no. It started up out of the blue when I was being very good and doing nothing bad.

So, I looked it up. Turns out, there is a school of thought that this is a normal sleep pattern that we’ve pushed aside in our strictly organised society. This article about bimodal sleep is very interesting.

So, last night I awoke around 4am and got up for a bit. I did take a Deep Sleep because I was feeling restless (which is a sure sign of not being able to sleep) despite the recommendation against sleep aids. I surfed the ‘net until I started feeling very tired – which was about 30 minutes. I went back to bed but didn’t ever get any real sleep even with the sleep aid. I kept waking up the rest of the night. I think I do have hormonal issues, but the idea that you can wake up and not suffer for it too badly the next day is appealing. I feel surprisingly well today. I think I’ll plan a nap this afternoon – which is recommended with this fucked up sleep schedule.

I’ve got party supplies to procure today, so off I go to get exercised and run my errands. Later!

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Family Neurosis

My brother called me today. He wanted to tell me about getting three of his teeth filled yesterday. Now, for those of you who don’t have dental anxiety, I’m sure getting a filling is no big deal. But for those of us who do have dental anxiety, it is a big muthafukkin deal.

He told me it took THREE 10mg Zanax to chill him enough for the dentist to work. Just damn! He was clueless as to why the dentist freaks him out so much, so I had to remind him that our parents (bless their stupid little hearts) took us to a Navy dentist when we were small and he didn’t deem it necessary to offer any sort of pain meds when he drilled or did whatever to us. When we’d cry about going to the dentist, my parents (bless their STUPID RETARDED ASININE little hearts) would either ignore our complaints or tell us that we needed to be “brave.”  Yup, I was 6 or 7, which made my brother 4 or 5. BRAVE. He doesn’t remember any of the abuses of that dentist but I with my impossibly good memory DO remember. That dentist drilled on me without novocaine. On top of that, it was stupidly done drilling that required me to get MORE drilling about 10 years later. (And THIS drilling done by another total QUACK they took us to will require me to get THREE crowns. Nice.)

So, I explained to my brother that his dental anxiety is not unfounded and it’s shared by me. It’s one of many, many gifts of neglect that our parents gave us growing up. I know they didn’t mean to treat us badly, but they just simply never bothered to check anything or anyone out – and it would never occur to them to treat children as people and perhaps LISTEN to what we’re saying.  The moron dentist that ruined three of my teeth (Larry Tragesser, Knoxville TN, total fucking QUACK) was a choice of the parents. He ruined their teeth, too, which to them, makes it all fair.

All this is why I call family the wart on the ass of humanity. Family will fuck you up in the most creative, deeply damaging ways. And then deny it ever happened and refuse to talk about it. Cuz if it’s never spoken aloud, then it can’t be true, right? ::rolls eyes::

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Ahhh! Friday!

And another busy week is gone. There’s a ton of stuff bouncing around my head today, so it’s time for the Friday Free for All list!

  • I really like my various jobs. I may bitch about the accounting stuff for the taquería, but learning is always fun – even if it is Quickbooks. Yech. There’s still the feeling of accomplishment when you spank it into submission and get the job done.
  • I am a total birdwatching nerd. There was a huge Red Shouldered Hawk around the neighborhood yesterday. Their call is much like a very loud whistle. I think it’s a female due to the large size. She woke me up at 7:30am this morning whistling. I never saw her today, I think she was in a tree behind my house. Nonetheless, every time I hear her call I grab my field glasses and run outside like a total goober. Heh. It’s as bad as the Barred Owls I chase around in the middle of the night! I am very pleased with my birdie nursery this year. I’ve got about a dozen cardinals (half of them fledglings), 10 or so Mourning Doves (3-4 fledglings), a fledged Towhee, lots of fledged finches, 2 hummingbirds (one female, one juvenile) and myriad others. No wonder I go through 20# of feed every week! They’d eat more if I gave it to them!
  • Still got too many squeerels. Need to go on a shootin’ spree this weekend and run them off. One came up ONTO the windowsill, looked me right in the eye and gnawed on my fucking window the other day!! Oh, there will be shootin’. Guaran-fuckin’-teed. (Yeehaw!)
  • I look forward to Taylor and Jeff’s wedding tomorrow. I’ve not been to a foofy wedding in a long time. It’s in Oxford, but it’ll be worth the drive, I think.
  • The mosquitos have exploded in my backyard. I went out to walk around the yard this morning and was swarmed! They even followed me into the house! ACK! It’s time for yard spray. Bleh!
  • Again with the birds, sorry! But fledglings can be SO cute! There was a finch trying to learn to fly the other day and it looked just like Woodstock! It was flapping as hard as it could and going in circles. You could just see the thought balloon: “ACK! How do I steer? Oh, HEY! Look out! How do I land? How do I land?!” I had to laugh. Poor thing finally did manage to get onto the feeder and eventually on the birdbath for a drink. Learning to fly is thirsty work! :-)
  • The cats have begun exhibiting interesting behaviours. Whereas they used to sort of sniff each other’s nose then whap, now they are head butting and nuzzling before they whap each other. Wonder what that’s about? Wish I could read their little kitty minds. I do know that it has to do with Bernie being gone. It’s changed the equation.
  • Yes, I know there’s a shit ton of Comic-Con pix to post. I plan to scarf some of it for my site – particularly the Pacific seashore shots I took. They will make excellent desktops. Other than that, I guess Nick will handle the bulk of it. I try to let him be the keeper of the photos. It’s best to have them all in one iPhoto rather than scattered about. Besides, a packrat like him is the perfect person to horde all the music and photos, so I let him!
  • It’s Friday and I’ve been fairly good with the diet/exercise this week. Of course I cheat, but not horribly. I may drink beer tonite, however, which is VERY bad. Eh.
  • Life’s short; live it up!
  • And with that, m’dears, I’m off to start my weekend. Happy Friday to all! ::smooch::
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Randomness

Today will be a disjointed day. I woke up feeling random and unfocused – which usually means a whole day of it. Feh.

I dreamed a lot last night. I remember bits and pieces: needing an operation, being at the hospital for a whole day waiting with an IV that I could undo myself to walk around, having no fear about whatever it was I was having removed. Hmm. That one was probably about my vile uterus that I can’t wait to be rid of. Nothing about Bernie or anything else concrete that I remember.

This morning I find my mind wandering aimlessly. I’ve got to get the Thank-Yous out to various folks in CA who made our trip wonderful. I’ve got to get this place cleaned up because I’ve got comp’ny tomorrow. I’ve got to get to the store to restock for the new stupid diet we’re trying. It’s the Quick Weight Loss Center plan, which is exactly the same plan as all other diets: eat a VERY small selection of foods from a tiny list and never have a decent meal again – and if you dare stray from the list or ::gasp:: have a beer, you’ll gain back 3# promptly.  Ugh. They work because they are restricted. Whatever, it’s worth a shot, I suppose.

See, even this post is rambling…

Had to make a sucky decision yesterday: to risk a valuable item of ours to help some friends or not. We decided not.  It was a hard decision, but we are still too freshly burned by a couple of people who used us for all we had a few months ago. We made a pact after the dust settled that we’d never ever put ourselves in that position again, no matter what. The position being that we put ourselves (and our property, etc.) out there to help someone and end up getting fucked. It’s the main reason we’ve cut people who we considered friends loose – because it was either cut them loose or feel the need to assist them forever.

It’s hard lesson to learn that people need to fend for themselves.

No matter how much you care, sometimes it’s just best to step aside. To me, that sucks ass. I like to help.  I like the gratification of seeing people I care about overcome their obstacles. It’s great to be able to help! However, I simply have to learn to stifle my enthusiasm. It’s gotten us in all sorts of bullshit situations in the past and I just have to stop. Nick has taken on the task of saying NO to me and so far it’s working OK. But I have to say, for the record, that I do feel the pinch of not being able to help.  I know it’s for the best, but it stangs a bit. 

Well, I’ve got to get the day started. Rob gave me a call and reminded me of all the shit I’ve got to do today. Off I go.