Dear internet! Thanks for making me feel enormously insane yesterday. Not just regular nutty insane where I might tell my coworkers about the time in second grade when during an instructional filmstrip on something important like exhaling did a classmate of mine secretly stick her finger up her butt and then hold it out and ask us, the members of her ‘table’ if we wanted to smell it (true story!). When I’m feeling a little nutty, I like to share that story.
No, Internet, you made me feel even more crazy than that.
I’m sitting at my desk working on something, I think I was adding utility use data to a giant excel spreadsheet (the awesomeness of that act alone would drive most to insanity), there was a lot of noise and talking from my boss’ office so I turned off my iTunes podcast (Tom Ashbrooke : On Point, current events are HOT) because my other option was to turn it up louder and that’s an irritation for other people (other people do not care for current events, they are not hot (actually, like half the people in the connected office listen to super right wing republican talk radio and it’s really bizarre, like the time I happened to catch one dude say “so, they say with global warming it’s going to get colder! how does that even make sense? huh, that just the same doublespeak marxist nuttiness we’ve come to expect from liberals” Like, wow, “I don’t understand the issue and I’m not qualified in any way to dispute the facts but it seems wrong so I bet it is wrong…hey, also…that whole ‘globe’ thing? totally pansy liberal bullshit! When I go outside the ground is flat, just like God made it. Total flat Mercator projection earth”. I love republicans) (wait, where was i?))
Oh yes, insanity.
I’m sitting there at my desk and I keep hearing mumbling …mumblemumblemumble. I can’t figure out where this mumbling is coming from. There’s no one in the right vicinity for that style of mumbling. I check to see if maybe by some weird act of physics some voice is bouncing off my computer screen (Physics? sounds bouncing? that’s crazy communist bullshit!). No sound bouncing off my screen. So now I’m trying to figure out where this mumbling is coming from. I’m trying to remember what I know about auditory hallucinations, do they actually hear them in their ears or just in their heads? because I’m hearing this from my ears. Did I take the wrong pills this morning? I’ve done that before…Nope, 3 blue 2 brown 4 shots of espresso. Did maybe I leave iTunes running and just pop the volume down? No no no there it is not running.
Now I’m worried. Then it stops and we’re cool and I continue to break down kwh used per day per square foot in each building because knowledge is power and immensely detailed and boring knowledge is like the same power that some mid level manager in a midwestern office might wield.
Then it starts again. Mumbling. Goddammit. I’m not even 35 yet. Why couldn’t I have a few more years before the slow sweet slide into thorazine and apple sauce? Lord knows I am looking forward to the day when I can wear a robe all day and my unkempt hair is all the permission I need to talk about the brown eels that invade my pants almost daily. But I’m not ready yet! I still have laundry to finish! Clean underwear is a gift I give David!
mumble mumble
I hit the F9 key (which on a Mac is the magic “show me every open window” key. It’s magic. Though not as magic as F8, that one shows me the current temp, how many pounds in a stone, and the definition of “eutectic”). Whoa, right there in the corner….what is that…..I click on it.
Goddammed stupid local news site I clicked to from CNN.com or something. I think it’s a talking ad, no, it’s not. Oh for fucks sake! This local news site (I believe it must be local news for the greater metropolitan area of Retardville) decided that people needed so desperately to know the fucking Oscar nominations that they would have the filmed coverage play quietly over and over and over in the corner of a page.
You know what? If I gave two shits about the Oscars I’d fucking click a link to an article about the Oscars. When I click a link about some small town guy who got his head stuck in the toilet, that’s what i want to know about. Go ahead, list the other headlines to the side, I’m game, I follow news links. Don’t just decide “hey! everyone cares about awards given to people! There’s nothing more fulfilling than watching someone better than you receive an award for going to work!”.
God, thorazine and applesauce sounds good right now.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject of toilets…
What the fuck is it with this sudden fear of toilet spray? I don’t watch tv but someone was telling about some ad where they show you that your toilet can spray germs up to 6 feet in the air!!! Oh my god, middle america! It’s time to freak the fuck out and buy yet another bottle of useless bromide to fight a war on something that isn’t going to kill you anyway. People! Your toilets have been spewing germs 6 feet in the air (and subsequently all over your toothbrushes) for your entire lives! Every single flush of your life has sent happy germs into the air! Has it killed you yet? Has it even made you ill? I bet there’s a pretty strong argument that regular low doses of common germs can actually help boost your immune system! Hell, I’m gonna go hold my toothbrush over the toilet right now and flush! How do you like them apples?
Category Archives: Blab
old lady
This weekend I cleaned my kitchen. Cleaned the whole damned thing. I cleaned like a pilled up OCD soccer mom that never gets laid. I’m not OCD, I don’t have kids, and I get laid with a frequency that is imprudent to discuss.
I am, however, pilled up. Of course I can’t blame the manic cleaning on the pills. I’ve been taking this dose for 6 months now, and nothing got cleaned. I think it’s the pills and the extra sunlight. It’s been amazingly fuckass cold here lately. When it is that cold, there is always bright bright sunlight (no nice warm insulating blanket of clouds).
I cleaned the hell out of the kitchen. I ran a billion loads of dishes. I stuck things in the dishwasher that weren’t dishes but I figured anything that needed to be washed and fit in the dishwasher would go. Cabinet fronts, sink, dishes, floor, counters. I threw away everything that was uselessly taking up space. I reorganized. I discovered the Mr Clean Antibacterial Multi-Surface Cleaner has a bizarre slightly anise-like scent that becomes stronger when sprayed on coffee residue.
I discovered that Pine-Sol will cut through any amount of old grease. I also realized that the properties of Pine-Sol that allows it to eat the grease on my stove also allows it to eat the fat on my hands. My hands have this weird scaly thing going on. EW. And no, I don’t want to wear gloves. they’re so creepy on the inside and they constantly remind me of Curley from “Of Mice and Men”. Creepy.
My house smells like a giant hippo ate an entire pine forest and then shit everywhere. Awesome.
so many projects
I still owe people handmade mittens for Christmas. These are the people who know they are coming late. I am working on them. I also volunteered to be a pattern tester for someone so i need to make a sweater in the pattern. I also need to make mittens for me, remake a pair of mittens for my dad, make two other sweaters for me.
Also, I have to work on Bubbo Designs and try to write up my patterns for sale. That’s the first step. Then there are all the other steps. All of those steps will require a lot of work.
Also, also, there is the “big project” with Anna. I will go into more detail when I feel we have done enough that detailing it won’t jinx it.
And i need to clean the house, deal with some financial things, get a spring installed, get chester in for his shots, try to find a cheap vacation out of town because I really need to get out of town and away if only for a couple days.
So what I’m saying is that I’ve been busy and when I am not busy I am thinking about the things I should be doing but not doing. Then I dream that no matter what I do, I am judged for not doing the things I am supposed to do, the things I forgot to do or didn’t know about. And I wake up with an untenable sense of dread and I can’t remember what I am dreading…then I do.
And maybe I shouldn’t use my website as a therapist.
spike
I have a headache in my temples. It’s killing me. It won’t go away. I imagine it’s related to the amazing amounts of snot crammed into my sinuses. I think I’ve not been clear about the amount of thick, sticky mucous that is self replicating in my head.
There is so much mucous in my head that is NOT finding any escape route that it is now popping my skull apart at the seams. I expect that within the next 18 hours every bone in my skull will detach from the others and my snot filled head will continue to expand. At some point I will be a body with a HUGE blobular expanse rolling around and draping over my shoulders.
Gangs of miscreants will graffito tag my head.
I finally got my car back (almost a week ago, but I haven’t really been able to drive it due to massive snot invasion). Sometimes you don’t realize just how many things need to be fixed on your car until you take it in and have everything fixed. Then you drive it and you’re all “MY CAR IS AWESOME!”. My car went from a worry to a pleasure boat and all it cost was a VERY LOT OF MONEY!
Here’s to snot pain and smooth cars.
David’s at the grocery store, I wonder if I can eat all his ice cream before he gets back?
Olio – a miscellaneous collection of things
1. I am completely addicted to my graphics tablet, as you can see below. it is quite possibly the awesomest thing on the planet. As mentioned before, it has a few issues but most of those can be overcome with determination and swearing. The one thing I can’t figure out is why I can’t use it to draw freeform lines in photoshop. It won’t track the pen tip and just makes a straight line from point a to point b with none of the curves I drew in the middle. It tracks the pen tip on other things like the circle tool and stuff like that, but not freeform lines. It does just fine with freeform lines in ImageReady, which came bundled with Photoshop. Mostly I don’t mind using ImageReady, it does most everything I need to do and it easily jumps back and forth with Photoshop so I can jump into PS to do the more advanced things…BUT I downloaded some brush sets that are awesome in PS but IR can’t use them. And I want to use them, but I can’t get the program to track the pen in freeform. Sigh.
1a. David may be regretting this particular purchase.
2. The sinuses surrounding my right eye (the maximilaris, sphenoidal and ethmoidal) are completely packed with the snot of the devil himself. I also have a fever, I ache and I feel a little petulant. Fucking flu.
3. The dogs are all passed out and cute. My dogs are cute. And awesome. What BigPharma doesn’t want you to know is that dogs are the greatest cure for stress and blood pressure. When I touch my dogs I have a real, physical reaction. I can feel myself relaxing. I need these dogs probably more than they need me.
4. The Humane Society had mastiff/shar pei puppies last week. The universe teases me. The universe loves to make me squirm! The universe makes me regret not living in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere allowing me to have a herd of dogs (and cats and goats and chickens).
5. Now that Maddie’s health has improved so much (thank you Dr Pierce Fleming, International Vet of Mystery) she is actually active and more interested in the world. Where before all she could focus on was how much her feet hurt, now she can focus on playing with me. The other day she and I were playing Hufhuffle. Hufhuffle is a game where Maddie stands on the bed and I stand at the foot of the bed, I punch the bed and posture with fake ferocity and she rears up and tries to pounce on my hands (she’s part cat). Then I trick her by shoving her across the bed and she jumps back even more excite. The little piggy tail helicopters all over the place. If she does catch my hand she holds it down with both paws and licks it furiously. When you play with Maddie you will never feel her teeth, she’ll grab your hand in her mouth and she does it so gently that you’d think she didn’t have teeth.
The other night, while we were hufhuffling (it is so called as that is the sound she makes when we play) Chester was out in the kitchen eating. At the sound of the game he came running in and jumped on the bed. Chester has different ideas about play, he is faster and harder and has giant sharp teeth that you have to remind him not to use. He also mock-growls. Maddie does not allow growling to happen near me. As he growled and lunged at me, she jumped between and had him on his back in a split second. She holds him until he goes slack and then lets him up and chases him out of the room, but that’s not enough, she must also stand guard at the bedroom door. I distract her and call her back and we hufhuffle again while Chester finishes his dinner.
5a. There’s something almost primal that wakes up when you watch someone or something protect you. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe. I’ve said it before, Maddie’s only mission in life is to keep me safe. For a while it was hard on her because she believed I was in danger all the time. She’s come to learn that mostly I am okay and I am not going to be eaten by the other dogs at the park or swallowed whole every time I leave the house. When I take a bath she patrols the hallway outside the bathroom, she is always at my side wherever I am in the house. When she doesn’t understand something, she puts herself between me and the confusion. Sometimes she tries to figure out why David is making me yell, she investigates this with vigor and concern. It’s hard to explain to a dog that I don’t need her hippo head on my face during special time. But again, it’s hard not to appreciate her intent and her efforts. She’s punched in, on the job, doing what she does best and she loves it. her salary is belly rubs and hugs and sleeping next to me at night.
6. I also love Anna Bratton, though not in the same way in which I love my dogs, David or a good beer. Last month I asked her if she could whip up a little design to go on little cards that could be added to my handmade gifts. boom. She sends me some options, I pick the one I like and then we discuss layout and suddenly I have the identity/logo ever! I mean I know it helps that she loves dinosaurs as much as or more than I do! but still, she does it perfectly every time! That’s why when I got another idea this weekend she was the first one I called. I can’t talk about the new idea yet, it’s still in a goo stage and I’d rather wait until it firms up a but, but anyway, we talked on the phone for 20 minutes on Friday and then last night she sent me some preliminaries that were so spot on. She managed to capture the essence of everything I was going for! Let’s hear it for Anna!
6a. Bubbo Designs is something I am hoping to get together by spring so I can start selling patterns and whatnot.
6b. So now that’s 2 big projects, the second of which might require me to take a class. Combine big projects and my graphics tablet and you’ll find I haven’t crocheted in a few days.
6c. It’s fine though. I burned out over christmas. I still owe people some mittens, but they have promised patience.
7. The awesome thing about being sick is that you can recognize that you just wrote a huge amount of nothing and you just don’t care. The bad thing about being sick is that you start to wonder if it is okay to start wiping your nose on your shirt because you are too tired to get up and get some tissue (TISSUE).
