Home Sweet Home

Safely.

Sane.

I got so distracted

I meant to post about my newest of guilty pleasures but got distracted by the topic of that fucker who hit me.

E! Entertainment Television has some pretty bad shows. One of my favorite E! guilty pleasures was Howard Stern. Politically incorrect always, but I just think his ability to be frank and mostly uncensored is funny. Sure he's a sexist pig, but he is so blatant and honest about it and my inner sexist pig finds him somehow refreshing. But in small doses.

I also got addicted to the Anna Nicole show. All Anna, all the time. I was intrigued mostly because she was able to sustain a show for two years and she is just so vapid. Bad, bad, bad TV. I don't really watch TV anymore, so for something like this to catch my attention, if nothing else, ammuses E (my partner not the channel) I am sure.

This past week I have not one, but two new E! shows which have my attention. The Gastineau Girls is a mother daughter socialite duo, yes, vapid x2, and I am hooked. Hooked is of course, a relative term. I won't exactly seek it out, but I will watch it when I come across it. I am not sure, but the other show, Love Is In The Heir, is either a jump up or down the vapid ladder. Princess Anne Claire is a hoot if only because she aspires to be a couintry singer/songwriter and she is just awful.

Train wreck TV.

If I wasn't on vacation in 20 hours I would be so much more pissed

Sumbitch in his new infinity hit my front bumper this afternoon. I imagine he would argue I hit his front bumper, but he would be wrong.

While waiting to exit the bank, a kind driver faery was going to let me turn left past his single lane of traffic waiting to enter the freeway feeder road. Single lane.

Douchebag in his new infinity suv pulls around crossing a double yellow line to get ahead of traffic. He was going like no tomorrow. I was virtually still. Crack.

Really, we barely hit, but both opur bumpers suffered similar cracks down to the metal and I want my new car fixed. soon. will have to wait til after vaca.

I called his insurance right away on the advice of my insurance lady so we will wait and see what happens.

Fuckers, the whole lot of them i wager.

We have the March issue of EP out the door and distributed around town, and today we made extra copies to take to NYC. Thinking global.

And it's morning

I am not quite sure what is flying around in my being this morning. The craminess from last night subsided before I went to bed so at least that has left me for the time being. I am feeling it is time to commit myself to geting some writing going on in book form and I am not quite sure if that means plugging away at fiction, possibly expanding "Alex", or if it might mean a collection of memoirs. It is my hope that I figure it out soon so I can just get on with it.

I have been reformatting some files recently and I suppose this is where all this stems from. When I got the MAc, I transferred everything I had recovered off my old laptop which ended up being a bit of a chore. I actually had to open the files on the desktop pc from a cd the Mac would not read, and then I had to email them all to myself. I then took the email and usin a Word trial offer, turned them all in to Word documents whhich I was assured would be readable by the Mac even if I chose not to buy Word for MAc.

Well, trial over, Word for Mac is $400 and not, IMO, worth it since I am just writing. I do not need all the formatting bells and whistles and MAc offers two different programs which do more than enough for me.

So, the dilemma is now this: All the Word documents a couple hundred of them, are needing to be opened with a different program rather than a one click on the file to open them. It is aggravating to say the least, but the text was not lost, so I am not compaining too much.

I might send a note to a publisher I know and ask her how I might resolve the issue of which type of book to pursue. And I might just start doing it and see what unfolds before me in a muse following sort of fashion.

Or both.

Are ulcers genetic?

Maybe all my problems can be blamed on my pop. My medical problems that is. I have been wondering lately if perhaps my intestinal woe is nothing more (or less) than an ulcer. My boss and I were discussing this yesterday and she said I was the last person she would suspect of ever having ulcers. I am just too calm.

But isn't an ulcer better than anything requiring a colonoscopy to diagnose?

[Picture me shuddering]

I have had little variety in my diet since the big purge on Sunday. Today, I got home and decided a bagel with a bare minimum of peanut butter would be an acceptable risk. Last night I had pasta with spinach, shrimp and sundried tomatoes, not a good risk, so a bagel seemed harmless enough.

I ate it without incident and also had some mango. Then I took a nap and before going to see Beth and Irina tonight, I had a second bagel as I was still a little hungry.

We went to see our friends because it was time for me to hilite Irina's hair. While there we also watched the L Word (yawn) and Fat Actress (chuckle). While sitting there I started getting these crampy feelings in my stomach. It was definitely up in my stomache, too. Very localized. I was able to breathe through it much like you might breathe through a labor contraction.

It got me to thinking about when I was a kid and my dad was never found without a bottle of Mylanta in his upper shirt pocket.

Re:[shudder]

So I am going to put peanut butter on the no list for the next bagel and see what happens. Then, I am going to concentrate on vacation and its close-but-not-close-enough proximity. This time next week I will be better, I swear (NYC awaits!)

Detox update

So I made it a day. The detox gave me the worst headache I have ever experienced. Maybe one of the worst 5 anyway. I know it is a normal side effect of the process and can last up to three days and here I am, day three, with that damn headache lingering.

I waited until I was really hungry to eat on day two which was yesterday. I ate about half a bowl of the Kitchari and decided I just could not do it. I graciously accepted defeat in the form of a couple of plain english butter cookies. About an hour later I worked up to a banana and then I made myself some pasta around 7pm.

When E had her evening bowl of gruel, the smell was nauseating to me.

Nauseating.

In yoga today I had a hard time concentrating to work through poses. A couple of time I felt somewhat dizzy and ended up feet up the wall resting. My yogi knows I have some crud invading my peace, so she told me to just go with it and do what I could, and if my body says rest, that I should listen. So, I listened.

I am at Panera at the moment having just had a cup of tea and not really being hungry for anything else, so I will wait to eat. I am thinking maybe just wonton soup from PF Chang's for lunch/dinner when I get my break around 4.

Maybe some chai, yes, that sounds right.

24 hours and three rolls of toilet paper later...

I have had this intestinal crud (that is the polite description) going on since about xmas. I went to the doc on February 23rd and she did bloodwork and an exam and gave me a referral to a GI doc whose first appointment is April 7th. My bloodwork cam e back great, the only concern being that I am still(duh) anemic.

I have also begun seeing an Ayurvedic doc. That would be Dr. Rob. He and Ayurveda were introduced to me through my yoga center, and rather than airy-faery quackery, a lot of it seems to make sense to me in theory and a lot of it is a sort of preventative medicine. Take care of yourself in the first place, and you might not get sick.

Dr. Rob's first order was to cut out milk. This made a huge difference, but did not eliminate the problem entirely. When I say Dr.Rob again, he saud I needed to do a detox. This is something he recommends between seasons to everyone or at least once a year as a spring cleaning for your body.

Squeaky clean. That's me.

The detox begins witha Fleet's oral enema mixed with water. Drink it down and follow with lots of water. "Expect 4-5 watery bowel movements thoughout the day" Umm...let's just remove the y from watery and stay on the throne all afternoon.

The detoxincludes eating nothing but Kitchari, an Indian rice dish made with spices which continue to draw toxins from your system. Kitchari only for 7 days. I could stand it for one day. I might be able to stand it for three or four days. Seven days is way more than optimistic.

It was such a delight to wake up this morning and pee. I did my business and then pfffft...I farted. Wow! No more water(y) bowel movements.

Yesterday, E and I decided it was our last chance to get the fig tree down. It has been long overgrown into the neighbors yard. Not in itself a problem, but it was about 10 feet tall and that portion of the tree was robbing the rest of the tree and it began to rot and weaken in places. It was also growing further into some wires.

During the process of removing cut limbs, the first one I removed actually, I found a hole in the front yard. I found it by turning my ankle and falling. Badly. Never a good plan when you are detoxing. "Nuff said.

I went inside and cleaned up and the horror of the fall hit me and I just sat there and cried. It was a good cry. Not had one in a while. Ah, release.

If Wrecks flops his heavy bony ass on my hurt foot one more time he might find himself in his crate for the day.

Time for some mindless TV and Nikita.

24 hours and three rolls of toilet paper later...

I have had this intestinal crud (that is the polite description) going on since about xmas. I went to the doc on February 23rd and she did bloodwork and an exam and gave me a referral to a GI doc whose first appointment is April 7th. My bloodwork cam e back great, the only concern being that I am still(duh) anemic.

I have also begun seeing an Ayurvedic doc. That would be Dr. Rob. He and Ayurveda were introduced to me through my yoga center, and rather than airy-faery quackery, a lot of it seems to make sense to me in theory and a lot of it is a sort of preventative medicine. Take care of yourself in the first place, and you might not get sick.

Dr. Rob's first order was to cut out milk. This made a huge difference, but did not eliminate the problem entirely. When I say Dr.Rob again, he saud I needed to do a detox. This is something he recommends between seasons to everyone or at least once a year as a spring cleaning for your body.

Squeaky clean. That's me.

The detox begins witha Fleet's oral enema mixed with water. Drink it down and follow with lots of water. "Expect 4-5 watery bowel movements thoughout the day" Umm...let's just remove the y from watery and stay on the throne all afternoon.

The detoxincludes eating nothing but Kitchari, an Indian rice dish made with spices which continue to draw toxins from your system. Kitchari only for 7 days. I could stand it for one day. I might be able to stand it for three or four days. Seven days is way more than optimistic.

It was such a delight to wake up this morning and pee. I did my business and then pfffft...I farted. Wow! No more water(y) bowel movements.

Yesterday, E and I decided it was our last chance to get the fig tree down. It has been long overgrown into the neighbors yard. Not in itself a problem, but it was about 10 feet tall and that portion of the tree was robbing the rest of the tree and it began to rot and weaken in places. It was also growing further into some wires.

During the process of removing cut limbs, the first one I removed actually, I found a hole in the front yard. I found it by turning my ankle and falling. Badly. Never a good plan when you are detoxing. "Nuff said.

I went inside and cleaned up and the horror of the fall hit me and I just sat there and cried. It was a good cry. Not had one in a while. Ah, release.

If Wrecks flops his heavy bony ass on my hurt foot one more time he might find himself in his crate for the day.

Time for some mindless TV and Nikita.

Wrecks claims a victory

Mother fucker. Can you hear him chanting nanny-nanny-boo-boo?

Last night when I went to bed I was nearly sleep walking. I neglected to take my day's booty out of my pocket. This morning E came to my side of the bed to kiss me goodbye when she left for work.

E: Ooh, there's some money on the floor here (picking it up)
Me: Oh, I forgot to put it away last night, must have fallen out of my pocket when I undressed (not even opening my eyes)
E: Ooh, a lot of money!

Well, E picked it up and put it on the shelf. When I got up about 10 minutes later, there was indeed a pile of cash there. It was $40 short of what I knew I had. That means it did not fall out of my pocket, but rather it was taken out of my pocket, likely by Wrecks.

I did not totally condemn him on the spot. I went looking under the bed and around the house but no cash to be found. Then, I was sitting on the toilet and in walks Wrecks, mother fucker, with a twenty in his mouth. I took it from him successfully and then told him to go get mommy's other twenty. Mother fucker.

So I concede, it is better to be missing $20 than $40, but that fucker either ate or still has stashed somewhere my booty. Updates as they occur.

how many days off can you request from a reasonable boss who likes you before she goes off on you?

I just monday put in my day off requests whrough june. Working a 4 day week, most requests can be accomodated by switching schedules around among the three receptionists without terrible difficulty. Especially since I mostly ask early. Way early.

NYC for Easter(March 24-28) was approved in November. Then there is April 7 for a doc appointment and April 15 and 16 for the Art Car Parade in Austin. Followed by May 13-15 for Saints and Sinners, and May 27 to seePink Martini, again in Austin. We take a break for the month of June and July 16th we will be blessing our union so I might want a few days then other than the 16th.

So now I find a retreat with Pema Chodron in August (5 days in Denver) that I really want to attend. I can safely consider all my previously requested days approved, but am I pushing it to ask for a few more days so soon? The key here is that I have to send a deposit soon. ASAP, even. And while we are at it, there will be a trip to Las Vegas tentatively the weekend of August 14, as well as a week vaca in Oct (destination TBD), and Thanksgiving and possible Xmas in Dallas. Whew.

What's a girl to do?

None of my days have yet required that I use any PTO, though I am perfectly willing to do so. I think maybe I will do August as PTO and October. Maybe I should just ask if I am asking for too much, but I do not want t consider that the answer could be yes.

it's only a number

Cholesterol...I had mine checked as part of my blood work with the doc a fewweeks ago and boy, is E pissed. You see, we eat a lot of rich foods. Creamy sauces, full fat infredients, the works. Let me clarify, E is put out because mine is not as high as hers. Mine is actually rather low. A respectable 144.

My blood pressure was high, for me. It was 124 over 80. I am usually pretty consistent around 110 over 70. I think the drama of being something less than well might have been enough to elevate the blood pressure. That, and a fever of 100.6.

Doc: Have you been feverish all along?
Me: Not that I knew.
Doc: Hmmmm...
Me: Of course I was not aware of it til you just told me today, either.

So my appointment was on the 23rd of February and the doc decided to refer me to the GI specialist. The first appointment she has available is April 7th. Joy.

In other news, I secured the Mansfield Collection as new accoutrements for the new bed. It is a dark chocolate color mostly and microsuede. Very rich, very soft. It is nice to see our new grown up bed fully dressed with new bed things. I got the drapes from the collection, too, and they really contribute a lot to the cave effect I am going for in the bedroom. We will have to rely much more heavily on the alarm now. I am going to look today for a couple more accent pillows, and then this room will be virtually done. Not including the bathroom part, but the bedroom part is closing in on done. Oh, except for bedside tables. Not found just the right ones yet.

I have to work 1-9 this afternoon. I decided to bring my laptop in an effort to go with the creative flow. I have been mostly transcribing notes from journals I used when on vacation. I have been thinking more on putting stuff together in a book format lately. Will it be fiction, memoir, etc. All I can do is keep at it until it happens. More or less. Hopefully something at Saints andSinners will further inspire me.