tres

Are you beginning to notice a pattern here?

I am exiled to my daughter's house with the three young-uns. My only chance at escape will be to go and pick up my check later. The boys were so bad two weeks ago that I passed on taking them out in public. Also, I had a tooth that was beginning to abscess and was recovering from the GI plague... Let's hope for a better Thursday this week.

Things are not shaping up to be any better this week. Jonathan is in perpetuous hissy fiticus. Trinity refuses to listen and follow directions. Gabe is Gabe. So far this morning, he has run through the house with a steak knife, continually argued with Jonathan in order to keep the hissy level at critical, and is currently over-stimulating his lil spectrum sensibilities with the toy catalog from Wal-Mart. Why does my daughter keep this sort of stuff around the house and accessible to them, and especially accessible to him?

I just finished brewing some Starbucks. I am sorely tempted to make him a cafe con leche. I have him sitting in the recliner. He has been instructed that he will not move from there. I am considering the feasibility of a velcro harness.

Wasn't a good day at all. I had to wait until Michael got home before I could go get my check because there was no way I was taking this crew out in public. Even if my coworkers are used to being around people with maladaptive behaviors.


I am exhausted. I will not have a day off until Monday. Going by rote and habit at this point. Miserable way to be. Null-brained! LOL


I am so glad that my daughter gets to spend half a day with her boys tomorrow morning. Let her feel the love.


She has decided that we need to do sewing projects for Christmas gifts this year. Lovely thing to be informed of on 28 November. And, being that I am the mommy with the fabric stash.... Fortunately, my pedantic and left-brained accountant-to-be finds most of my fabric to be ugly. It does, however, make it nearly impossible for her to find fabrics with which to make something that will be something other than "typical."


Color was the key that unlocked my right-brain. Textiles were first. Then fibers. Then embellishment - beads, buttons, trim, paint and dye....



For quite a while, things were still very geometric and generally symmetrical. Then came the concept of "free-form."



omg! progression from binary and hexadecimal to free-form.... Free-form crochet. Creating pieces of fabric out of asymmetrical bits of cloth. Buying wool and cashmere sweaters at the thrift store, felting them, dissecting them into bits, reassembling them into something completely different. Collecting and destroying denims for a monochrome color-wash crazy quilt.

Michael and Amanda aren't home yet. It's the time that I have to start getting ready for work. Guess I'm showering here.

Back from work. I'm c-c-c-c-COLD! It's only 28 degrees out. There are people who like this sort of weather? I have difficulty believing that.

What began with a photograph on the cover of a magazine has progressed from concept to passion and avocation.

With the discovery of my muse, the existence of alternate reality was birthed.

The alternate reality has influenced the "me" that I am today in far more ways than my left-brain would care to calculate.

Slow check out lane at the store.... "Oh hey, that's a really cool texture on the ceiling." "I like the cut and drape of that person's overcoat." Stopped by a train at the crossing... "Interesting effect of the sunlight filtered through the leaves of that tree and on to the side of the building."

My perception is tuned to a different frequency. Before it was droning mental dialogue. Now, my perception is focused on a new set of data. Texture. Form. Structure. Spatial relationships. Color.

It has turned into Friday evening. I'm hanging with the crew (What else is new.) while Amanda and Mike go to dinner and a movie. I've got 50% of the kids watching Bridge to Terabithia. The "spectrum child" has been tumbling, flipping, feeding his pizza to the dog, and drawing on the carpet with markers. Jonathan is being three - flipping, tumbling, and thinking that his brother is a suitable role model. Makes for some very long days.

Back to the saga of folding, spindling, and mutilating my reality...

The alternate reality of the right-brain opened doors to many venues. Sort of funny what happens when you can step outside and foster a different perspective towards maturity.

Ah, those growing pains...

You have to believe that the alternative reality is viable when the misanthrope has a metamorphosis into an advocate for the developmentally disabled.

Two things are to be deduced from this: Anything is possible when you open your mind to the unexpected. God has a twisted sense of humor.

dos

At several points during the last entry, I attempted to expand upon being/becoming right-brained. I did not do well. Reality kept interfering with the creative process. Hate when that happens.

Years ago, I worked with a stripper who was also a Gemini. She commented that the best thing about being a Gemini was that you were allowed to make up your own reality as you went along if the present reality did not suit you.

You would have had to have known this girl for the impact of that statement to be truly manifest. Blonde, beautiful, tanned perfect body. This girl could stand on stage and pick her zits and men would throw money at her. I discounted much of the way she was due to having been raised in California by her aunt. Her mother was a 1960s hippie war protester "ringleader" from Berkeley who was in federal prison for selling marijuana to an undercover fed. Easiest way for the powers that be to get her out of the picture, I suppose.

Alternate reality. The realm of fiction was what came to mind at the mention of an alternate reality. Fantasy and delusion followed close behind.

But, this was the 80s in the Bay Area. The Valley was The Valley. Everyone was worth $1 million on paper, and the cocaine flowed like water. 80s Land.

Of that time, I say that I went from life in the fast lane to life in the breakdown lane.

I came back to Ohio where IT was an unknown term and what passed for computer geeks were a-twitter about Turbo Pascal.

I took a part-time job at a video store as Beta Max was taking its dying gasp, and I wrote.

I had begun writing in earnest on an ancient Olivetti that I picked up for $20 at a pawn shop in San Francisco. I liked it because it had character.

The more frustrated I became with the return to bucolia and with the inability to string two cohesive paragraphs together on most days, the idea of making up an alternate reality kept worming its way into my thoughts.

I am not sure when it was that I initially discovered that the alternate reality did exist, but its revelation came to me via quilting.

By this time, I had been a nurse for about three years. I worked a full-time job and two part-time jobs. I had already been hospitalized for a cardiac arrhythmia due to exhaustion and stress. I had had iced saline pumped down a nasogastric tube into my stomach in the emergency room for a bleeding ucler. Talk about being cold! There is nothing like the experience of having your body temperature drop due to a procedure like that. There was no getting warm.

I had a couple of aquariums full of fish. I had gotten my first one while I was in nursing school as a form of stress relief. I also went to the gym, work schedule permitting, for stress relief. The fish were cool, but the gym was not. Being me, I had to work steadily and diligently upon increasing the number of reps, the amount of weight. Static was not a good thing in my world.

While at the pharmacy waiting to pick up a prescription of Xanax, I came across a magazine with the most beautiful quilt I had ever seen on its cover. I bought the magazine.

I had learned how to sew when I was probably 9 or 10. That was the early 70s and double-knit fabrics were the thing! (I can't believe that I even admitted that.) When I was maybe 12 or 13, I decided that I wanted to make a quilt. I diligently cut my scraps of double-knit fabric into squares, tried to arrange them into a pattern, and sewed them together. It was totally hideous.

In looking at the beautiful quilt on the magazine cover and the other beautiful quilts inside the magazine, I thought back to my atrocious patchwork creation and shuddered.

There had to be a way to do this quilting-thing and have it be beautiful. There had to be a secret, and I determined that I was going to discover that secret. I set about it in my left-brained way.

I searched the bookstores for several months, looking at the quilting magazines and buying the ones that I liked. After a few months, I had settled upon three magazines that I liked and bought subscriptions to them. I chose those three for content regarding construction tips and techniques and tools, the types and styles of the quilts that they featured, and articles on things such as color and balance and the illusion of motion and designing quilts and blocks that were "outside of the box." Those appealed more to me than what was presented by most magazines which featured mainly traditional quilting patterns and colors and themes.

I began to buy fabric. Cotton fabric. No more polyester double-knit for this gal! I wasn't sure what to buy. I bought basic calicoes. I bought seasonal prints. I bought graphic and geometric prints. If I liked it, I bought it. It didn't matter if the fabric was orange or puce or a print of giant cacti or of primary colored dinosaurs. My only requirement was that it had to appeal to me. The more I looked at fabrics, the more I found that I did not like most of what was offered as traditional quilting fabrics. The geometrics and novelty prints and batiks seemed to draw me more than calicoes and florals.

I continued to read. I read about new techniques for cutting and assembling blocks. I bought implements of destruction. (Namely rotary cutters and rulers and mats.) I began to search out books of quilts that I liked. I began to come across the names of a few quilters whose body of work appealed to me. Foremost among them, Nancy Crow. All the while, I continued to buy fabric.

Determined that my second attempt at quilting was not going to be the wretched failure that the first had been, I finally gained the courage to attempt my first "real quilt."

I would do a wall hanging for my mother for Christmas. Armed with rotary cutter and ruler and theory on strip piecing, I began to select my fabrics. As my mother tends to be very traditional, I decided to go with a more traditional type of pattern. Garden Path. Four colors in rows where each color is offset one to the right from the row above it. I began to select my fabrics. My "stash" at that time was close to two hundred yards of fabric. Pretty out there for not ever having taken that first stitch. However, I had read that the biggest mistake that beginning quilters make was in poor color selection. I was determined not to make that mistake.

I began putting fabrics side-by-side in different combinations. I fussed. I fidgeted. I moved and rearranged. I pulled out more fabrics and repeated the process. At the end of it all, I had three fabrics that I liked. I needed one more. The hunt was on. To the fabric store I went.

I found my fourth fabric which worked perfectly. I came home and began to cut strips, sew, cut into blocks, sew some more... In just over two hours, I had the top pieced together. It was stunning. I was amazed. It was absolutely beautiful. Simple, yet very, very catching.

I finished the wallhanging and gave it to my mom for Christmas. She loved it.

A few months later, I was visiting my parents. My baby sister had gone off to college, and my mom had bought an antique bedroom suite, complete with dry sink, and put it in my sister's old room. I was in the dining room and looked up the hall through the open door of the bedroom. Wow! This quilt that was draped over the back of the dry sink caught my eye. I had to go check it out. Once I was nearly at the bedroom door, I realized that the quilt which had caught my eye from 30 or so feet away was the wall hanging that I had made for Mom. My sister had hung it over the back of the dry sink.

Eureka! It had worked! As simple as the design had been, it was the combination of colors that made it work. I had managed to make a "good" quilt.

Somewhere in my right-brain, an alternate reality had just taken shape.

A reality where things were more than the sum of their parts. A reality where rules were made to be broken. A reality that was not limited by traditional, settled boundaries and constraints. A reality that was not black & white and concrete. This reality was vibrant and fluid and full of color. I really liked this reality a lot.

It is coming up on 3am. I have kiddo-duty tomorrow and work again tomorrow evening.

My right-brain says tune in for the next installment, when we shall hear our heroine say, "....." Oh never mind. You never know what crazy thing will be said next.

uno

Home again, home again. Where the hell are those ruby slippers when you need them? s'ok, my feet are probably too swollen to fit in them anyway.

I was planning on staying at work 14 hours today. Could only hang with twelve after yesterday. My knees hurt badly. They hurt last night, too. I soaked in the tub, and it helped but not enough. I was still awake until 2 am from the pain. Then back out of bed at 5:15. And did it all over again today.

It's 8:10pm. I am in my pajamas. I have taken 600mg of ibuprofen and 1000mg of acetaminophen, 6mg of melatonin, 25mg of benadryl. My electric blanket is warming. I will, with any good fortune at all, be well asleep within a couple of hours.

I hope the guy doesn't decide to call tonight. He was trying to talk to me all day today. I really wasn't trying to hear, "How have you been doing?" "Are you OK?" I was busy. I didn't feel well. And, if he were that interested, he could find some point during the week other than when he actually has to be face-to-face in the same shower with me (resident getting a shower) to ask.

It has come from 8:30pm Saturday to 7:03am Sunday.

I have been up for about 30 minutes. Wasn't my idea. The muscles and tendons in my right lower leg decided to spasm. That is usually what happens after a couple of days of working like that. At least I slept until almost 6:30. It generally strikes sometime around 3am, so I lucked out last night. I was trying to stand in order to get the inverted contraction out of my foot. My right leg was insisting that my foot needed to stay curled and if I needed to stand it was going to have to be on the outer aspect of my right ankle. The stupid dog kept trying to come into the bedroom and dance at me. She was yelled at twice for her efforts. Guess she didn't get the clue the first time I cursed at her and told her to get out.

It's cold this morning. Like 28 degrees right now. Well, one source says 28 and the other says 21. I'll go with 28 as it makes me feel less despondent. (Apparently that page isn't refreshing properly. I went to the weather site and it's 27.) There generally isn't much disparity between the 2 sites as both read from locations near my home.

I finally got some coffee brewing and took my medication. My knees and ankles aren't excessively painful right now. Then again, I'm not moving around a whole lot. My right hip and right lower back are, however, singing a rather discordant tune. When my joints swell and hurt, my gait is effected. When my gait is effected, my hip starts to hurt. When my hip hurts, I try and reposition myself and end up irritating the sciatic nerve on that right side.

Can you tell me why it is that I'm looking at the job postings for nurses?

When I was soaking in the tub Friday night, I noticed all of the spider veins on my legs. A couple of varicose veins. My legs look absolutely hideous. I'm going to have the laser treatments done. The wrinkles in my face... well they don't bother me so much. The way my legs looked - couldn't stand it.

I have a couple of more hours before I have to be dashing out into the cold. The high today is supposed to be 47. Winds 5 to 10 mph. Another one just cold enough to have my fingers go numb if I decide to go out for a smoke.

Of course, since it has been on the cold side for the last 4 days that I have worked, Monday and Tuesday, when I am not working will be in the 50s.

I'm in the process of copying and pasting my Yahoo 360 blog to a MS Word document. Yahoo is eliminating 360 but says the content of he blogs will still be available. They do not say where it would be located or how it would be accessed... So, I'm backing it all up and going to move it myself.

There are 72 entries there. I have about half of it C&P'd. My Word document is 52 pages long at this point. I dunno if there is a page or size limit. Guess I may find out. 50 entries and 67 pages, almost there! Finished with 100 pages and just over 1mb in size. Didn't take that long even with the antivirus scan running in the background. But I seriously need to get into "My Documents" and do some filing.

It's 9am. I have about 45 minutes before I have to start getting ready to go. I have consumed about half the coffee and am rolling a few smokes for later. If I can make it through today, I should be able to have my knees back in shape before I have to go back to work Thursday.

Hey, we're up to 31 degrees outside! Isn't it amazing what a little sun can do? And I say little because it is always sort of grey here, even when the sun is shining. Just don't get that "real sun" like do out in Arizona and Colorado. The sky here isn't as grey as Seattle, but it comes pretty close. Closer than you would probably believe.

Oh, I am sooooo ready to go back West. Damnable family ties. Aging parent, grandchildren, nieces and nephews growing up. I feel very stuck in the middle.

Gonna close this here, finish this cup of coffee, have a smoke and get ready to roll. It's generally a good day on Sunday. The residents really love going to church though I genuinely wish some of the churches loved our residents.

I wonder how the churches are with Genny's homeless folks? I'll have to ask her. I know the churches come in to the shelter. I don't know about taking the folks from the shelter into the churches. If they're like most "good church folks" I imagine they're sort of condescending in attitude towards "doing the lord's work."

Thanksgiving was good at the shelter. One of the church members from a church that likes to call itself helping set her up with a caterer who bailed on her the week before Thanksgiving. Why spend time and resources catering for a bunch of homeless people when you can direct them to a better paying gig, right? Fuckin' assholes... So, another church (a new recruit, by the way, lol) stepped up and Genny said they did awesome. Not an easy task when the shelter has no working ovens. More people showed up to help than were needed so the clients got more like two-to-one, rather than one-to-one, time. The pastor of the "helpful" church also showed up, with his wife and daughters. He tried to tell Genny how she could and should be more organized. Genny told him how it was, including the caterer that his parishioner had arranged and what she thought of his lament to her about his struggles with his denomination and wanting to come work for her. I love Genny (in spite of the fact that she is trying to draw my attention to the reality that I really need to understand and to appreciate and value the guy's single-mindedness for the awesome character trait that it is).

Hells bells! I know she's very aware that it is easier (and much more fun) to be obtuse, quasi-focused, and irreverent. (Hey, that's why she is my evil twin. lol) But, she can see the need to be focused and single-minded, too. That's why she is able to effectively lead in the midst of the chaos that is her milieu. I would not want to do her job for anything. Maybe join in the chaos but certainly not be ringmaster. Clown or side-show freak would be apt. lol.

My response is that I am seeking to send the guy to her for training in right-brained theory. I offered to pay 50% of her fee up front. He certainly is never going to understand it from me. I think it merely frustrates him that I am intelligent, can think, be rational and logical, and yet choose to be something other than those things.

I am very, very left-brained by nature. I decided several years ago that I hate it. Left-brained, in my reality, is stressed and obsessive and having to control everything because delegated tasks would not be completed to my exacting, neurotic standards. Left-brained has given me cardiac episodes. Left-brained has given me irritable bowel syndrome. Left-brained has made it impossible for me to be satisfied in relationships. Gotta remember, my personality is choleric-melancholy. My Jungian personality profile ENTP. (extroverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving) I saw one statistic (you can make numbers say anything, remember - think Enron) that stated only about 3% of the population is that particular combination, and those are the thinkers and innovators (malcontents, lol). So, can you get some idea of how difficult my personality traits make it to just "get along" in day-to-day interactions and situations. omg! Put me in a fucking "think tank" somewhere and let me be my bellicose and surly left-brained self. Or, go back to IT and be stressed but mentally satiated. My left-brained self is misanthropic and cynical. And, I genuinely do like that about myself. Please don't misunderstand and get the impression that I decided to give up being dominated by my left-brained traits because I didn't like that about myself or thought that my views on life and humanity were wrong. I am still quite satisfied to believe that manunkind sucks.

It's midnight. I got in about an hour ago. I had wanted to finish this blog before I left for work this morning, but you can see that I sort of got on a roll.

It is now 1:30am. I have been chatting with Joni and then with Al. I have accomplished nothing further on this... darn it! It is going to be good though.

As I have to be up in the morning with the kiddos and hen go to work, I have to head to bed. Guess this will wait until tomorrow.

Back for another go at this. Had some serious "font issues" due to having blogspot having problems saving this and having done it in different segments. So, I re-typed what became 5 pages when transferred to a Word document.

It is 10am. I have dropped the boys at the sitter's but need to shower and drop their accessories and head to work for a couple of hours.

OK, showered. Having a cup of coffee and a smoke before I leave the house.

I suppose the right-brained portion of this will have to wait until the next chapter. That is not a problem for my right-brain. However, it frustrates the hell out of my left-brain. Why should we be bothering to discuss the right-brained nonsense in the first place....

Can you believe it's now Wednesday afternoon?

Well, it is. I have been in to work every day this week. Monday for just an hour or so to make sure some labs got drawn and were ready for the physician to review on Tuesday for an upcoming surgery. I covered call offs yesterday and today. I am going back to work in an hour to do

Well, my boss called and asked me what was happening today. He's off with a scratched eye. So, I didn't have time to finish that last paragraph before running out the door to go do the psychiatrist appointments.

I did pretty well. He got there about 5:30, and I had all of the paperwork done by 9pm.

So, it's now coming up on 12:30am Thursday.

I have officially been working on this entry for 5 days.

Geez.... What a week this has been.

Some Things...

Not quite sure where this will go, but let's press onward and find out...

It was on this date in 1963 that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It seems hard to believe that it has been nearly thrity-five years since this country had a truly great leader. In my opinion, we had two great presidents in the 20th century, JFK and FDR. Both were rich but largely angered their class with their social conscience and understanding that it was the middle class who was the back-bone and strength of this nation. Both understood the importance of science and research, unencumbered by political strings.

Speaking of political strings....

I posted a very cool video from YouTube onto my myspace page. The link to my page is in the link section on the right sidebar. If you just want to watch the video, here is the addy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKZg-RswIco

It is done by The Art of Mental Warfare and uses the music of Nine Inch Nails - The Warning from Year Zero as a soundtrack. Please watch it. It will make you think about its message, even if it is one that you may not agree with.

I happen to be a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. Note the link - - - - - - - - -> (over here to the right) for the website. The first time I saw them live was on the ORIGINAL Lollapalooza tour (from which I still have my t-shirt). Broken remains as my favorite NIN album, though I always said that The Fragile would be the one that I would take to the desert island with me, just because it was a double disc. lol However, I think Year Zero has supplanted it for desert island status. The remix of Year Zero was released this last Tuesday. What is different about this remix (and we know how notorious Trent is for remixes - I'm still trying collect all those halos, OK) album is that is was done by the fans. For several years, Trent has put the master recordings on the website in order for the fans to be able to download and remix them. He blogged about his reasoning for doing this, the Year Zero Remix snafu with his former record company, and implications of lawsuits that Viacom and Universal have filed against YouTube and MySpace. I would encourage you to read that blog on www.nin.com in order to see some opinions about what these lawsuits could mean to the fate and content of the internet.

Trent Reznor is one of those musicians that I always said I would like to sit and have a beer with. (It would be sort of awkward as neither of us drink, but you get the gist.) Donald Fagan would be on that list. Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon would have been on that list. Patti Smith would be on that list. As would Lou Reed. Todd Rundgren. David Bowie. Joni Mitchell.

Rolling Stone magazine did a series a while back about 100 of the most influential musicians, written by other musicians. David Bowie did Trent Reznor. Keith Richards (I guess he finally admitted defeat and added the "s" after decades of people getting his name wrong.) did Gram Parsons. I am a big fan of Gram's, too. That series is archived and available for reading online. Check that out, too when you get the chance.

The photo at the beginning of this blog is "the hat" (If you want the story on "the hat" go to www.dubman.com and check it out. It's an interesting saga. Sort of along the lines of the YouTube classic - Where the Hell is Matt?) at Gram Parsons' memorial in Joshua Tree. If you don't know the story behind the memorial, read up on Gram. In fact, read up on Gram anyway. His influence on music is legendary.

Today is Thanksgiving. I'm working, if you can imagine that! lol It's fun though. I love hanging out with my "other family" on the holidays. I am planning on taking Christmas off to spend with my kin. I worked 17 hours last Christmas. That better be enough to get a bye this year. Plus, I'm contingent. I am not contractually obligated. However, being that my boss is my friend, he is not above using guilt on me. He worked last Christmas as well, so I'm going to remind him that both he and I have earned Christmas off this year.

I do have much to be thankful for, in spite of the fact that 2007 has been one truly fucked up, suck-ass year for me personally.

I can no longer work full-time, but I can work enough to pay my bills and certainly do make more than the $603 a month that I would get from disability. I have no health insurance, but I am eligible for care (As my friend Genny says, "So that's what they're calling it these days.") through the VA - once I get desperate enough, that is. LOL I have diabetes, but I'm not over-weight according to my body-size/weight chart. According to my closet, I am about 35 pounds over-weight. My blood sugars stay relatively stable in the 80s-90s range. Having them run high certainly does damage but having them fluctuate does damage as well. I have been battling severe depression since the end of last year, but I am reasonably functional most days and find that I have been gradually improving over the last couple of months. The fact that I cannot sleep has to be the worst aspect of it. The second worst would have to be that I have had absolutely no interest in anything outside of what is necessary for me to do. That seems to be abating a bit, as directly evidenced by the week-long shopping vendetta that just ended. (I did win both of my eBay auctions last night. Yippee!) My dad died this year, but I did meet my soul-mate. As much as he frustrates me, he is the one. Damn it! My 29-year-old cousin died unexpectedly from a grand mal seizure a couple of months after my dad died. That pretty much pushed me over-the-edge mental health-wise and caused me to step away from my religious convictions and examine why it was that I chose to believe what it was that I held as "truth." It also spawned some good debates with my friend, Al. I considered myself atheist, but I would have to concur with Amanda's assessment that agnostic would be more accurate. As I have said, when you tell God to fuck off, it is still an acknowledgment that he does exist. On re-examination of my faith, I would have to say that I am a deist at this point. Probably more gnostic than Christian in my views on the teachings of the early Christian church. And, I am reading the Quran. I also have a couple of Buddhist texts that I want to read. I think Buddhism is a great philosophy, but no more insightful or inherently true than any other at this point. That is pretty much the summation of the year to date, and I hope that I have no more to add to it with the six or so weeks that remain in this calendar year.

Hey, it's 7:50pm, and I'm home!

We had an extra nurse decide to show up for the night shift since it was convenient for her agenda. So, I cleared it with the boss and left. There is absolutely no reason to pay four nurses double-time. It's just as well. We had a call off for tomorrow morning, so I'll be working a 7a to 7p tomorrow. Speaking of which, I'd better just go ahead and take some benadryl and melatonin now so I can get some sleep since I will have to be up at 5am. So much for early in the a.m. Black Friday shopping ventures. It's just as well. I could use to be making money rather than spending it.

My boss is pretty bummed-out with his new guy. Seems he has a thing for hanging at the bar all the time. I can see where that would get old really quickly. He asked how I was doing with my guy. Couldn't admit to doing much better other than we weren't arguing. Of course, I haven't talked with Brian in over a week, so I don't think he knew that we had a fight in the first place.

It is a bit after 9:30. Time for me to smoke one last cigarette and get ready to make my way to bed. Being paranoid, I am setting my battery alarm clock and my cellphone alarm as well. Even I cannot sleep through three alarms. Well, I haven't been known to sleep through three. Two, yes-on plenty of occasions. Being that my morning stiffness is bad, it takes me a couple of hours to get moving so I have no choice except to get up at 5am.

So, these are just a few things that were on my mind today.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring.

Can't Sleep

It would seem that insomnia has got it’s hold on me once again. I was sitting here at my desk earlier - sleepy and beginning to nod. I went to bed and proceeded to toss and turn for an hour. I have been back out of bed for an hour and it would seem that I am no closer to sleep. UGH! This is madness!

So, I am taking some melatonin and some benadryl in the hope that I will soon be able to sleep.

I did decide to cancel my subscription to the Pogo game site after all. I could not see paying the yearly fee which has been increased yet again. It is now $40 a year or something like $6 a month if you choose to pay monthly. Ridiculous. When the cost was $20 a year, it was fine. I wasn't happy went it went to $30 last year. At $40 a year, I will find something else to do with my time and my money.

For starters, Valdani hand-dyed cotton threads would be a better way to spend $40. Upholstery trims would also be better. Donating some groceries to the food pantry would probably be better still.

I have a couple of bids on eBay auctions that end shortly. 40 skeins of rayon embroidery floss and 48 skeins of DMC craft thread. I really should get some perle cottons at some point. My sewing projects were much simpler before I became addicted to hand embellishment. LOL I have been thinking of learning smocking. The foreknowledge that it takes about 2 days to mark and prepare 2 1/2 yards of fabric makes me a bit hesitant. However, it would give me something to do while waiting for that guy to not call.

Miss Piggy has fled from the insolent K.C. to the safe harbor of my lap. Nocturnal beasties! I have thought of acquiring another kitten (even if it's a "loaner") for the purpose of harassing K.C. but figured that the two of them would find it more fun to band together in the torture of Miss Piggy.

Less than 20 minutes remain on one auction, and I am getting drowsy. It would figure to work that way. Ah well, 2 1/2 hours remain on the second, so I am aware that it is a possibility that I will be awake for that one.

concurrent #1

It has been a bit of a different week so far. I haven't had to deal with the kiddos other than to run them to school and the sitter's this morning and then to pick the little boys up from the sitter's. Tomorrow, I take them to the sitters as there is no school.

I went out yesterday and ran a couple of errands and did some shopping. Repeat performance again today.

It has been sort of a nice change.

I have gotten only minimal stuff done around the house, but it is better than I generally get done after spending a day with Gabe being off the hook.

Having had his birthday and with seeing the toy commercials for the Christmas marketing blitz, his autistic little world has just been launched over the top. I spent most of the day Friday trying to get him to leave the snow globe that I bought for Amanda on the mantle. At one point, he put it in his backpack and carted it off to his room when I was busy with something else and couldn't watch what he was doing.

I am undecided as to whether or not I'm speaking with that guy. He absolutely frustrates me at times. I fail to understand how you can be so single-minded that it consumes EVERY minute of your day. However, that is how he is. Though he is apologetic for being that way, it doesn't help much with the fact that after a few days, it serves to irritate me immensely.

I guess that's how you manage to get a masters degree in 9 months. lol

While the intellectual left-brain admires and respects him for those traits, my right-brain wants desperately to choke the living daylights out of him.

As he has been camera-shy, I was able to locate a photo (albeit a bad one) of him online to show Al and Genny. Genny said she could see how I could fall in love with that smile. Al thought he was very handsome and disagreed that the spawn need to have my nose. Both of them have been giving me a rough way to go about the fact that I am (and have admitted to being) "spineless jelly" when I'm around him.

It's OK though. I can rationalize enough trivial BS to be miffed about that I don't need any assistance in being contentious. So, the fact that I lose my resolve altogether when he looks at me probably isn't a bad thing. And, it does provide my friends with vicarious amusement.

24 hours or so later -

Just now hung up the phone with that guy. It would appear that I am speaking with him. The conversation lasted 11 minutes and 46 seconds. It isn't often that he will stay on the phone for longer than 10 minutes.

He was laughing at my summation of his single-mindedness. I think he was relieved that I really do get it. I will admit, it is that I simply don't want to get it sometimes.

He is very rigid and dogmatic in the way he approaches learning a new career field. Where the hell is the fun in that? That statement, in short, exemplifies the main divergence of our personalities. I wonder if he is as perplexed by my laissez-faire and obfuscation as I am by his stalwart stoicism?

I'm tired. Think I'm going to go have a bit of a lie down.

concurrent - #2

We will see how this goes... I have another "in progress" blog up on the other computer screen. I'm not sure in which order the computer will end up posting these.

I'm chilling with the grands. Three of them anyway. I was all for sending them to the sitter's, but my lovely daughter who gets to escape to the world of adult people on a daily basis, said to keep them home and have them pick up the messes they have made all over the house. The reward being the promise of gold dollars. Yeah, right... that will work... sure it will.

I did some shopping online this morning. 10 yards of African-inspired cotton quilting prints, and a yard of brown geometric upholstery fabric. The online company that I had shopped with had sent me a discount for 25% for any purchase over $35. Including shipping, 11 yards of fabric for about $30. I also spent about $30 on eBay for 29 packages of Myuki beads. Gotta love great deals.

This has been a very, very good shopping week. I ordered from Hancocks of Paducah earlier. I bought some cool cotton quilting prints and some Asian print sampler squares for Joni. She wants an Asian quilt and has no idea where to begin in order to have her aunt make one for her. So, I thought the squares would provide some cool inspiration. That whole huge order was less than $40. At the thrift store the other day, I found some sage velvet upholstery fabric. An absolutely HUGE, intact piece. I'm not sure how many yards there are, but for $4.99 it was not to be passed up! I found curtains - 54" x 84", sueded fabrics, one gold and one sage for the guy's apartment. Close out aisle at Big Lots - $5 for the sage one and $3.50 for the gold one! The green one was JC Penney and the gold Springmaid. good stuff!! Also at the thrift store, I bought two bags of mixed yarns for 90 cents each. There were two hanks of cotton/silk blend fingering weight yarn that retail for $10 each, a skein of green wool blend designer yarn, and several assorted balls of some semi-cool novelty yarn.

I am going to try and get some laundry done today. I'm not sure how that is going to go with "the crew" up and about and underfoot and doing what it is that they do.

I think I have about half a case of food poisoning. Amanda said no one else has gotten sick from the Arby's, but I'm thinking food poisoning versus another bout of the GI virus because I also have horrible indigestion as well. Being that was pretty much all that I ate yesterday... Oh well. At least I got the bad food rather than one of the kids getting it.

I relented and emailed the guy. I am such a sap. No resolve whatsoever when it comes to him. Damn it! As I stated in the blog that is pending on the other computer, I suppose I cannot be too upset with him over his diligence and single-mindedness to his studies. It isn't as if he didn't inform me that this is how he is. And, he is very apologetic for it when he sees me. Intellectually, I understood what I was signing on for. As far as my feelings go, I have to wonder if this is how it is going to be off and on throughout? Should I resign myself now that the answer will more than likely be yes and be determined to move ahead with that knowledge?

I am going to make some more coffee and get started with the laundry.

More later.

Too Funny

Just found out a bit ago that apparently there are some people from work reading my blog. Gotta love it. Especially when it spawns the kind of response that it did.

I received an email to approve a comment to be posted to my entry "Yes, I Did." Included in the comment was a website address.

www.myspace.com/ParkWestRumors

I had to head over there to check it out. omg! I'm going to have to put the myspace page on my links list.

It's like I say, crazy isn't a prerequisite for employment there, but crazy is vital for continued employment.

Gotta love the internet!

Uncomfortably So Not Numb

It has been a long day so far, and it isn't even 3pm. omg! these boys are trying to kill me today. They have been so bad and completely off the hook that I wouldn't even take them with me to go pick up my paycheck. I called the office before 1pm and told Dorothy to give my check to one of the other nurses when the checks came in. It has been miserable with them today!

So much for getting my check to the bank and having some money. Little knot heads. That's ok though, I already told the sitter that she would have them tomorrow. Just need to get out and run errands as soon as I drop the kiddos off at school.

It is getting cold. After being relatively nice all week, it has dropped down to the 30s and is going to stay that way all weekend. Of course it would be wretched weather, when I have to be out in it.

I need to toss the boys in the shower real quick before the other kiddos get home from school. I'll add more to this later if I survive them.

Planning on going to see that guy tonight. Just because. We'll see how that goes.

Yes, I Did It

Disinformation – The deliberate dissemination of false or misleading information that is leaked for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions. A common practice is to mix truth, half-truth, and lies.

My plea - Guilty as charged. However, I don't like to lie.

We had a nurse get fired a few weeks back. It doesn't happen too often, but it does happen.

The nurse who was unfortunate enough to be working with this nurse the day that this happened is a really nice guy. He is also a very good nurse. He has integrity. He also has a great sense of humor being that he survives my good-natured harassment on a weekly basis. (I let him know that he is the Number Two man in my life, and that I would be perfectly willing to solve his "can't keep a girlfriend because he works too much" dilemma. I told him he merely needs to call me when he gets a couple of free hours ~nudge, nudge, wink, wink~ and other than that, he can feel free to work as much as he wants and I will keep myself busy with shopping.)

The rumor mongers have it that he is directly responsible for getting this nurse fired. As I told my supervisor, I thought it was her actions that got her fired. Gee, personal accountability? So, anyway, he hasn't been a really happy guy of late. When I heard that the rumor mongers had him upset, I went in to work a couple of hours early just to talk with him.

OK, my interpretation of "talking with him" would probably differ greatly from yours. I told him that he needed to ignore these people. He has his own agenda and what he is doing works for him, and to let these miserable sons of bitches who have no life complicate his thing is absolutely ludicrous. I even offered that I have no problem with telling those who need to be told, "Fuck off and mind your own damn business."

So, he's still not convinced that he doesn't want to change his schedule, job situation, etc. etc. He works for us full-time, works a regular part-time job, and works for at least two other places contingent.

It's a matter of credibility for him. I understand that. I respect him for that.

Being that we (he, me, the supervisor and several other people who would prefer to keep their views to themselves because they're just not into being a blatant asshole like me) had a pretty good idea exactly who the gossiping fucking traitorous cunt in the department was (Not being sexist here at all. If a male nurse were suspect, he would bypass bitch and move directly to cunt as well.) I (being one who doesn't give a shit about much that goes on around work other than the well-being of my patients) decided treachery was the order of the day.

I will say that it was successful if the anger and vehemence that I got from the y-chromosome person of significance is an accurate measure of success. Oh my gosh he is PISSED at me! He was talking so fast I couldn't even understand what he was saying at one point. Being blonde, I was stupid enough to ask him to repeat it because he said it so fast that I didn't catch it; that merely served to piss him off even more.

It's going to take him a while to get over this one, if he does. I would hate to lose him because I really do love him. The guy is very private. He doesn't want his life to be the subject of the grapevine. I cannot fault him for that. He has a history with the grapevine having ruined a relationship for him already. In hindsight, had I known that, I may have done things differently. If he can't forgive me, I would hope that we could stay friends because having had him as a part of my life, I could not imagine not having him be there in some capacity.

So, back to the tale of subterfuge...

I told three different people in our department three different scenarios about me and the guy.

The disinformation that was given to the prime suspect was what came back to me via the wrath of the y-chromosome. And, was it ever distorted and mangled and twisted. OH SHIT IS HE PISSED!! Hell, it even pissed me off with the degree to which it had been folded, spindled, and mutilated.

But, my suspicions have been confirmed. I really didn't have any doubt, but you know, you can't come up with a proof if you don't do the experiment.

So, it is beyond our department now.

It is beyond our division.

It is beyond our corporation.

It is the property of the world via the web.

Just gotta love the religious people of the world.

Love and Politics

I’m doing the closest thing to cooking that I do at my house these days. Once the oven is hot, I'm throwing in one of those frozen self-rising pizzas. Cheaper than delivery and tastes better than from some pizza places.

I'm struggling but hanging in there with the not smoking thing. I really wanted to go buy a pack today, but I didn't. I wanted mainly to buy them because I'm not real happy with that guy right now. However, two things come to mind. I need to be able to change those habits and coping mechanisms. That was how I ended up smoking again when my daughter decided two weeks before Christmas in '05 that she was leaving her husband. It has taken me almost two years to be able to quit again. Secondly, quitting smoking is not about him. It is not for him. It is for me. To jeopardize what I am doing for me because he chooses to be an insensitive, two-faced, double-dealing, watch me show up at his place unannounced, has me seriously considering throttling his fucking ass, would be absolutely unthinkable.

Yes, I do feel better for having put that out there and having gotten it out of my system.

If I don't vent here, it won't get done. I do have a legitimate gripe or two with him. He probably has a legitimate gripe or two with me, too. (If you could possibly imagine such a thing. LOL) Part of it being blown out of proportion is the nicotine withdraw. I have a very serious physical addiction to nicotine. Picking up cigarettes again was an absolutely asinine thing to have done.

And, if I try and look him in the eye and complain, I'll melt and lose my resolve. His eyes, his smile, him putting his arms around me... I sort of melt away into the arms of the man I love, my mate, and it suddenly isn't worth the argument. With us being so different in temperment and personality, I can only figure that if I didn't instinctively respond to him in that manner, we would fight continually and hate each other. Which brings me to realize that god has a pretty fucked-up sense of humor.

Also along that same observation... my period - two weeks overdue. I was initially pretty horrified to think that I was pregnant. 46, smoker, not taking my vitamins and folic acid regularly. That of course being secondary to the fact that I have had a hormone imbalance for the last 23 years and had not been able to get pregnant. Luckily, I haven't taken any of the truly horrible and inherently dangerous medications for months, but I was questioning when I had taken the Neurontin, Lexapro, Prilosec, etc, etc... Regardless of what the data says, I don't feel comfortable that things that alter brain chemistry and body chemistry could be completely non-harmful to a developing fetus. Then, there's the fact that he has another year of school left to complete. How much will I be able to work over the next year? Talk about increasing his stress level to off the scale... I don't think he is aware of the rule that babies never pick a good time to show up on the scene. It took a couple of days to regain some semblance of composure and realize that I love this man and would be thrilled to raise a child with him. I realized that our prodigy would probably be enough like the both of us that it would serve useful in mentally and physically taxing the parental units to the very limits of endurance. I don't think he would do any better with a mini-me than I would do with a mini-he. So, I was determined that I had better do this pregnancy test and be prepared to tell him the worst.

Yes, god has a fucked-up sense of humor. You must get a negative pregnancy test result in order for your period to start two weeks late. geez!

In a way, I was relieved that it was negative. I was also, in some ways, disappointed that it was negative. I would have to concur with the general consensus that having a child at 46, after my children are adults and I am "free" is bordering on lunacy. However, it was the prospect that it was his child that would make me consider it rational. I have been divorced for 25 years and always said that I would consider marriage again with the right man. This would be the right one.

I'm feeling pretty beat right now. Lack of nicotine and the acquired GI bug that has been so popular at work this last week have me ready for some sleep. I suppose I'll have to do a "Part Two" in order to have to keep from changing the title of this entry.

It has been a different sort of week. Not inherently good or bad. I guess each of the situations and scenarios would depend upon the point of view you wished to take as to whether or not it would be considered good or bad. The sort of labels which leave no room for subjective interpretation really don't sit well with my soul.

I need to find another copy of The Image of the Beast. Marvelous book. Authored by Philip Jose Farmer. Originally published in the 1960s. For some reason 1963 sticks in my brain... OK, being the somewhat neurotic perfectionist that I am, I had to google for a publication date. It was published in 1968. When the book was first published, it was labeled as pornographic. As I was seven years old and in the middle of the corn fields when the book was first published, I did not come across it until it was reprinted in the mid-1980s. In the edition which I had, the forward was authored by Theodore Sturgeon. In the forward, Sturgeon wrote of the "labelers," those people who can quite readily define abstract concepts.

I am certain that I have mentioned this book and the forward in some previous blog entry. It is well worth referencing again, however.

Labels bother me. They are never thorough or complete. They do not provide you with background details. They are often applied in order to generate a specific type of response to them.

Weeds

In horticultural terms, a weed is strictly any plant that is where you do not wish it to be. The most beautiful rose or delicate orchid, where you do not want it, is still a weed.

It can be a similar scenario with other areas and aspects of life. While something may be pleasant or enjoyable or even desirable, misplaced, it can be intrusive and distracting. In doing a bit of thinking over the last week, I have decided that it is past time to do some serious weeding.

Pruning is one thing. Weeding is another matter. Pruning is an extreme cutting back or cutting off. Pruning allows reshaping and new growth. Weeding implies total elimination; removal at the root. As with any weeding endeavor, the smaller ones are easier to uproot!

I thought I was ready for sleep anyway... I had taken my melatonin and gave it an hour. I was starting to feel really drowsy, especially after only about 4 hours of sleep last night so I went to bed. Here it is 11:45pm. I have been back out of bed just over an hour, have taken a Benadryl, and still am no closer to sleep than I was.

I miscalculated the amount of yarn that I had purchased. It turns out to be more like 65 pounds rather than 50 pounds. That additional 15 pounds may not SOUND like a big difference. I guess I'm going to have to go and buy that additional industrial shelving after all. And, I think it will need to be two units instead of one. My studio may not be getting weeded, but I think it may end up getting pruned after I get this next round of projects underway.

I really do need to try my bed again. Though sleepless, I am far too tired to do anything else.

Another day in paradise has dawned... grey, cold, overcast... gotta love it. The only change is really the temperature; it tends to be pretty grey and overcast here most of the year. That sucks. More than you can imagine. With the previous weekend having hearalded the change from daylight saving to standard time, the blackness falls before 6pm. This time of year signals my metamorphosis into a mole.

Can you say daylight spectrum compact fluorescent lighting. Wonderful, wonderful innovation.

Flu Season is Here!

I really am trying to sleep. I have a slight case of the flu so sleep is a bit difficult to attain. If my head is not aching, my nose is stuffy. If my nose is not stuffy, I am coughing. If I am not coughing, I have the chills.

I left a phone message for the guy that I hoped he had had a good day and that I had the flu. Translation, don't even entertain the idea of seeing me this weekend. If I don't have a fever tomorrow, I will go to work. We are working short, and I don't want the attendance points. Missing out on the money would sort of suck, but the other two factors take precedence.

Now that I have already acquired the flu, we have received our allotment of flu vaccine at work. Typical.

There is no over-the-counter cold medication that will substitute for green death Nyquil. It has to be the most wretched stuff in the world, but it does make you not care that you feel like shit.

I have finished with the wool gathering frenzy. For now. LOL I didn't do too badly. I got 18 different lots for just over $300 including shipping costs. Somewhere between 50 and 60 pounds of wool yarn. Now, I have to find some place in my studio to put all of it until it gets worked up for next winter! That task will begin in about 4 months.

This next week will bring finishing Brian's pillows. Note for future reference - Trapunto SOUNDS like a good idea. I have home dec projects lined up for the guy's apartment. (He loved my fabric selections.) And, I need to start cutting and piecing the 1930s reproduction quilt top for Al. I need to finish a scarf for Nikita this weekend. I have my teal chenille Christmas sweater to seam and then add the turtleneck. And, I have the flu. Geez....

The large dog and I are having a debate over the addition of Iams Savory Sauce to her bowl of food. When I have that stuff around, she feels she should have it on her food every night. Not happening in this life. She is spoiled and pretentious enough without adding that particular affectation to the list. Using it occasionally is one thing. Making it a semi-regular occurrence is fatal. So, she will be mad at me and will not eat her food for the next couple of days. Eventually, she will get hungry enough and will eat. Stubborn, stupid dog. It only means that the bag of food will last three days longer. LOL hmmmmmm.... if we were to do this once a week, her bag of food would last almost an additional two weeks.....

I took minor note a couple of weeks ago over the mini-media frenzy regarding the MRSA infections spreading among the general populace. Remember that cynical aside I made to community-acquired MRSA a few months back? And you all thought that I was just being my usual cheery self...

So, I have a bit of time to get prepared to move to Africa. Should be interesting. It is a bit overwhelming when I think about the whole of it. I need to decide how to break the scenario down into more mentally manageable segments.

I'm going to try the bed again. It's coming up on 1am, and I have to watch the kiddos in the morning and work tomorrow as well.