She's baa-aaaack!

So, um... hey. It's been a long time, yeah? I'm not sure how a "short break" turned into "over a year" but here I am again. Let's see, did you miss anything? Hm. Well, on top of all last year's medical BS, I got hit with really godawful arthritis mid-October, so Halloween was crap. I did go to Halloween Horror Nights like 8 times (yay for Frequent Fear Passes!). Christmas was dented by Disney's bullshit assign-overtime-then-remove-it-after-you've-already-headed-back-to-Orlando policy, but I got good presents. Nothing interesting the first part of the year until I finally ditched DRC in June for a Very Large Car Rental Company, and that's not too bad at all. Extremely political, but I have a few really cool coworkers. I broke up with Dan September 16th, and that's been difficult, but it was overdue and we both knew it, so... I guess it's okay. Moved into a new place yesterday (boy roomies, woo!) that's WAY closer to work, and.. well, we'll see. I'm doing a little crying, a lot of thinking- four years is a long time to be with someone, and I have to readjust to being solitary- in a lot of ways. So now I'm back, hopefully some of you ghost readers from before will wander back by, too, and I promise I'll try to get back to being funny ASAP.

New drugs

Oh, thank God.

I'm back on the upswing, I think. The last week has been absolutely hellish. It's amazing the number of reasons your brain can manufacture to tell you you should be suicidal when things are actually going okay. Awake and in dreams, that mess doesn't let up. God, what I'd give to be normal. Well, normal-er. Anyway, I think I'm through the dangerous part for the time being, at least til November/December, which is usually another bad time. Man, they really need better, CHEAPER drugs for this shit.

Ultradian cycling: not exactly the cardio it sounds like.

Up feels like this:



20 minutes to 2 hours later (if I'm lucky), DOWN feels like this:



If lucky, I get a short respite of this:



Then... lather, rinse, repeat!

I'm losing my mind.

Take car. Go to Mum's. Kill Phil. Grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for all of this to blow over.

Damn it. Just... damn it. At least August is ending. Turns out I'm allergic to Chantix in a scary, could-become-anaphylactic way, so I'm toughing out withdrawals for the millionth time. God, I'd love a cigarette. Disgusting taste, nasty smell, I don't care- I want a damn cigarette or twelve. Thank God for benzos. I had funny stuff to tell y'all, but the withdrawals are eating my head and i can't remember now. Oh, yeah: The Maus has bought the Marvel Universe. I damn near cried when the email came this morning. value my job, but certain things DO NOT belong together. Should NEVER be associated. EVER. They dilute and pollute both separate identities. Friggin' horrifying.

I owe my soul to the company store...

Miserably sad. Feelin' sorry for myself and for others. Had a crap visit for my girly checkup with a new GYN today- my shrink had hinted/agreed that after the disastrous endocrinologist visit I should see a regular doc 'bout my hormone tests rather than Planned Parenthood, so I picked a lady doc listed with my insurance (I like men, but prefer someone with personal experience of cooters examining mine). I didn't realize that because P. P'hood is pro-choice, and doesn't wanna guilt trip anyone in either direction, they don't have pictures of babies all over their walls (they have funny posters listing all the stuff you can Do instead of It- some cheesy, some not), but regular non-pro-choice gynos apparenly have HUNDREDS of babies they've helped with- and this is why I didn't choose an OB/gyn!!!!!!!. Given my extreme issues about kids-of-my-own, given my own STRONG pro-choice stance, and given that the purpose of my visit was partly to discuss birth control methods, the cute (and NOT cute) baby pics were seriously discouraging and sad. Out of all 2- or 300, there was only one little guy I wanted, (and he damn near killed me). I would never, ever recommend that office to a preggers and conflicted friend, put it that way. Then the doc- who was barely older than me, which felt weird (I miss my ARNP in Tally so much!!)- told me that the weird hormone test I owe 300 bucks for DOESN'T COUNT cause I was on the Pill at the time, and the test had to be redone. Then, during our BC talk, I realized she's the kind of doc that doesn't like patients who do their own research- unlike my fantastic (yet conservative) shrink- and then, when she heard the word "bipolar," she shut down entirely. I asked about Chantix, the quit-smoking pill, which my INSANE CHAINSMOKING coworker has done unbelievably well with, and she was all, "Well, given... your history... I'd be a little nervous recommending it...." Yeah. Whatevs. (BITCH). My shrink is okay with prescribing anything I truly should take, even cholesterol meds- which are decidedly Not Head Meds- yet this woman can remind me I have NO BUSINESS smoking at my age on the Pill, prescribe me more Pills, but not be willing to prescribe something that might help me finally quit for good, cause I'm a wee bit "off" in the head. NOT that she wanted to discuss it, even in light of the OBVIOUS cycle my moods follow, not even with the questionable hormone tests. No wonder that office has you watch a 10 minute video about malpractice and arbitration before they'll see you. To get as close to cussing as Southern women are sposed to do, BLESS THEIR HEARTS, they're more cautious than a rabbit in a fox preserve. GAR.

So I came home, took a nap, noticed I'm a hundred bucks overdrawn (whoops! Ouch!), made an appt with my regular doc to get Chantix (I told the receptionist the situ, she said, "OMG! My husband quit with that ! How's tomorrow?" I said, "I have no money for the copay," and she said, "Who cares? We'll bill you for months!" So I'm going). I felt a little better, PPV'd "Interview With the Vampire" for 2 bucks, then, 3 mins into the glorious silliness that is Tommy C playing Lestat got a txt from my friend and co-worker that he got "walked" today. That's the D***** euphemism for getting shitcanned and walked out of the building by security guards who may or may not let you collect your belongings-including car keys. He's having an Unemployment Gathering, assuming 8 or more people show up (work in-joke), and I can't go. Not cause of Dan's sleep-depped fit the other night, I just can't go. I have barely enough gas to get to the doc's tomorrow, no money to get more, my car insurance is currently nonexistent, I barely remember how to get to my friend's house, and since my bad bout of neuritis, I'm terrified when driving in the dark (the blind spot's mostly gone most of the time, but I'm terrified it'll return full-bore, especially at night. I try not to mention to anyone when it's only a little noticeable- I'm too darn scared of MS or simple (!) blindness), and I'll be DAMNED if I'm gonna tell my newly unemplyed friend that I'm too broke to come over. That's like the one-legged cripple sobbing to the no-legged cripple. Not to be vulgar, but it IS.

Anyway, I'm not the happiest camper this minute. Glad I'm off tomorrow, glad in a weird way that my cousin finally had himself a baby girl (don't ask), shamefully glad I haven't been fired yet. I keep counting off all the friends I've had there who are gone now and getting sadder and sadder about trying to have friends at work at all, but I'm okay. And lucky, so far. Yay.

Jenny, I got your number...Jenny, don't change your number... I wanna make you mine!

LOOOOOOOOOONG RANT TIME!:

Sorry, y'all, but you may have noticed I haven't been writing much lately, of any variety (I started the McGee blog at the end of a regular McGee reading-binge and just haven't had the gumption for critical re-reading, which sucks- I'm not great at criticism, but I'm not terrible either, and I undertook the new blog knowing what I wanted to do with it. I found an interesting book of letters between John D. and Dan Rowan (of "Laugh-In") with some good background for the- Ya know what? I despise calling it criticism. If I were a good writer, with balls enough to FINISH anything, much less submit it, I might feel differently, but I'm not. I'm a giant wuss, and I'm terrified of really embarking on any real writing project- where my heart lives, where the blood flows deep red- fullscale. (I'm ridonkulously proud of a few Halloween outfits I've made [hey-ya, Janek: Marvin the Martian? That shit rocked!] because they're all I have to prove ANY true creativity in the past... what, 5, 10, 12, years? No, I gotta say, anyone who doesn't think my Wonder Woman and Mrs. Lovett outfits didn't rock can kiss my grits. They truly were impressive, particularly for being done by hand). So, tangent aside, I've marked The Most Important Bio To Date of John D. on my Amazon list. I love the idea of having a Really Comprehensive McGee Site, I like fooling in Photoshop with the pretty page I built, and I'm very proud of myself for researching how to be minimally competent in a new page language I'd never been aware of before. Especially since I tend to SUCK at any spoken language- "Como te llamas?" sounds lame in even a faint Southern accent, and let's not even get into "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?" Not that I've had much chance to USE that particular phrase, I'm just sayin'.... Anyway, I very badly want to get up, to get up offa that thang, and get some damn content up. I've got a half-draft saved recapping the 1st McGee book, but I don't wanna just post the Cliffs Notes version- no matter how in-depth- they're not anywhere near what my backwhen profs woulda called my "potential." What very little I think I'm capable of, with or without some fancypants research trip to (BOOOOOOOOO!!!) UF, I'm just putting off potential failure- on the Internet, oooh, how awful (yeah, people SEE it, but it doesn't make the New York Times- and, shoot, word is the Grey Lady might fail before too much longer. Damn shame). Yep, I'm an egotistical cow, but I've read critical sites- books and movies- that SUCK, and I get the butt-itch; just like I do with Ben Stiller movies; and die a little inside thinking how desperately I don't wanna be that guy. Or girl. Or woman, if we have to be feministy about terminology. So tonight I"m just urping up the verbiage. If you care, here's a long update on What's In Jenny's Brain (I dunno why you'd care, but SOMEBODY's giving me page hits, and it ain't just my mama, cuz the page count doesn't do repeats, and the new, too-fancy header crashes that elderly CPU (Sorry, Mommy!)- so if you're out there and give a shit, here's my current "BLARGHHH!" Pls excuse the messiness. :)

I am RILLY annoyed with my new apartment complex. Yar, I know, I was madly in love widdem, but right now I just feel pissy. Just in general. I wish I'd MADE them give me the 3 bedroom apt, for the space, WE NEED IT, but wahhhhh! I couldn't excuse that for just one person within their income limitations. More important-and more currently- the neighbors upstairs (whom I've never seen, and am terrified to confront in case they're scary) have been doing what I SWEAR ON THE BIBLE sounds just exactly like bowling for the last few nights, til 3 or 4 or 5 AM- NO joke, I can describe it at length (and have, this week, to travel agents at work when the computer's taking too long or to GS people when I do something stoopid and have to explain why: I'm not normally dumb, I'm just sleep depped!). So today I mentioned it to one of the new, older (yeah, "older," she mighta been Dan's age, at most. Oooooh, 46!! God, I HATE being grown up!) ladies in the apt office, and she immejutly called the guy- I was mad impressed by her promptness- and, holy cow, she reamed him, with commentary to follow ("After all I've done for him! He seems so nice! I just can't believe he'd be so inconsiderate! I've raised my daughters in apartments and they know better than that! They live in fear of stepping too hard, and they're 22 and 15!" I tell ya, I believed her. She was scary like when my mama gets lecturey). She's totally my new hero (at least 'til I get busted for something and go all, "Screw authority figures, I hate her!" Let's hope it takes a while. She was great). Turns out the neighbors are supposedly packing to move (yeah, that ain't what it SOUNDED like). But hey, if they're gone at least I can sleep again, at least 'til new peeps move in, even if it is weird and lumpy "WHATWASTHATNOISE?!!"sleep when Dan's away. I felt kinda guilty about the lady reaming the guy- we're very, very lucky to live over young dudes who seem not to give a damn when Micah decides he NEEDS to watch a movie in full theatre style surround sound- wait, my bad, we don't have the back-wall woofers, so it's not really "surround" sound- or when I get beery and decide Dan's son (great kid, BTW), needs a stereo Edumacation in some of the History of Rock and Roll: why the Rolling Stones' early years are important, with references to the "Dirty White Boys," the British Invasion (actually, I left some vital stuff out there, come to think of it), the Sexual Revolution, the POTC movies and Johnny Depp's inspiration and the nuclear 'splosion/cockroaches-and-Keith-Richards jokes (with pictorial examples), and why George Harrison was the best Beatle, period, particularly post-Beatles and not just cause he was the cute spiritual one- and, damn, I forgot the whole "Layla," Clapton, Derek-and-the-Dominoes-and-Cream part. Thank God I did, poor Sam might have jumped over the balcony. Yeah, I was kinda on a roll. A loud one. ANYWAY.... We're loudish, but the boys downstairs seem to be college-stoner-types- and one has AMAZING daytime babymama dramas in the parking lot including airborne car seats (Thank goodness, without the baby- that mess was ENTHRALLING) so hey, I say we're even.

On top of that, I got off work late today (but booked 4G's on the overtime call, hey-hey-hey!) and had to nearly KILL MYSELF, sans car insurance, in rush hour traffic, to get to the Verizon store up the road (and got a sweet, accomodating rep who tried really hard to get me a similar new number- he did get 2 digits in common, yay - and told me to call or text him anytime- thank God for hooters, cause I have had SO many bad Verizon store rep experiences, and that's all I can think of that coulda changed my luck) to change to an Orlando phone number today, no matter WHAT, after 2 years of living down here, after having the same Tallahassee number for... shoot, I don't even know. Since 2002 or -3. All because of the frickin' security gate here, which hasn't worked since we moved in (YAY!). They finally fixed the damn entry gate so it'll close at 7 PM as of tonight (DAMN!), so if you don't have a gatecard you have to use the keycode to call the resident (Remember: officially, I'm the only person who lives here. Adding either of the guys (even Dan, even minus the money to his real, legal family he supports, and that income- even Micah's and my God-only-knows-WHAT-you'll-get commision (but my job calls it incentive) to the lease would get us thrown out cuz we collectively make too much money (SAY WHAAAA?!? We're HORRIFICALLY broke collectively, and on the verge of bankruptcy, individually. TOO MUCH MONEY? Damn, we must be rolling in green for this joint!) to get to keep the place. The gate won't take an out-of-area-code number, and with Dan working 2 jobs, me working daytimes, and Micah working whenever he's scheduled (or just up and called in to do deals), plus his awesome girlfriend randomly stopping by, one gate key just won't do... but of course, I'm the "only person who lives here," so I had to change my number to stay safe. I dunno if extra peeps would really cause problems, but I'll be darned if I wanna find out. It's SO annoying, cause I have to let everyone on God's green earth know the new number- when you've had the same one for 6 or 7 years, that's no joke. Friends, family, work, doctors, ALL the places I do business with... ARGH. Nice thing is, the student loan Nazis can't find me for a while- they shouldn't be calling, anyway, but I don't have the energy to bust out a proper legal cease-and-desist on 'em like I should've done a couple of years ago. That's what the "Ignore" button is for, anyway....
.... The button on my beautiful new phone, that is- did I tell y'all about that? I got the enV Touch (I had a regular, original enV last time) after playing with the various touch phones at the Verizon store (and OHMYGAWD, some pree-vert had tried the web browsers by looking up porn sites, and the staff left it on there! Maybe they didn't know?) and ARGH, I am in lurve with my phone. Feel cheesy about it cause it's been so heavily advertised, but it really does ezactly what I want- it's got a touchy-feely front that does the cool horizontal-or-vertical view thing like the fancypants iPhone, then flips open to a proper button-pokey qwerty keyboard for texting and whatnot. And, best of all, when my new-every-two discounts kicked in, the sucker was gonna cost me 50 bucks, so I waited, cause it was rent week, and the next week they dropped the prices and it was FREE. Hey-o! I was a very happy bunny. Still am, cause oh, I woulda been so pissed... like wasting 50 bucks on that moron endocrinologist- I'm still not over that one.

So... yeah. That's the here and now, for now.

Arf.

Yep, I wasn't kidding. August is crap so far. Work is not good (but could be worse), money is not good (but could be worse), and home isn't exactly terrific at the moment (Dan's now working two jobs, the time-suckage is enormous, and balancing me with his family is tough, to say the least). I just want to be 50 lbs lighter, like I'm sposed to be, and have one day with enough time and bucks so I could go to the mall and look for an outfit and go to the used bookstore-without getting lost-and misbehave a little bit there, and maybe go to a girly movie in the afternoon when no-one's there, and not feel guilty after about any of it. That's all I want. To not be tired and sad and sick for no reason, and broke on top of that, and making everybody dislike me cuz I'm a horrible Debbie Downer. Then again, at least 3/4 of the people at my job are in the same position, so at least I have company, right? And a job to commiserate over in the first place. Lucky me! (No, really, I am, and I know it. Being "broke-but-hey-did-you-see-the-fancy-cell-I-got-for-free-with-my-contract-renewal?" ain't ezactly Darfur). Here, let's all have an AWESOME happy song:

workin' for that Yankee dollar

You know, pineapple rum and Orange Coke (don't argue with the nomenclature, I'm Southern) do NOT mix well. I tried it blendered with cantaloupe and... um... that green kind of melon (?), but that's basically a waste of likker. Does get your fiber in, though.

I'm freakin' exhausted. Slept 'til noon today, been crashing at like 7 every night. We've had 5 or 6 new offers drop at work in the past week, and the calls have been balls-out back to back every day. I wouldn't mind so much except that your talk time counts against your sales, and nearly every call has been modifying existing bookings, which doesn't help my numbers one bit. Argh!

There's family drama going on too, but I won't get into that here- it's just annoying that August is always the dog days of my year, and this isn't shaping up to be any exception.

Yay, interwebz!

So I finally came up with the money Brighthouse wanted and navigated the complications of getting them to acknowledge that my apartment ladies DID let them know it's ok to give me the internet access I'm already paying for here at the new house. Jackasses. I'm very happy to be able to do more than the VERY limited stuff on my 'bout-to-be-replaced cell phone, or 'Oh-Lord-they're-gonna-CATCH-me' bill checking at work. Now I just have to figure out how to pay my car insurance, since their money went to get us webz and decent channels again.... Not to keep complaining 'bout money- I know it's been a major theme 'round here lately, but God, I'm sick to death of being scared to death.

So, that endo appointment? Shoulda spent the copay on beer. The woman heard 'fatigue and weight gain,' ignored my way-off hormone blood tests, MADE ME SHOW HER MY STRETCH MARKS. (I tell you what: I woulda done some damn hedge edging if I'd even SUSPECTED that was gonna happen! I guess she wanted me to prove the weight gain had been as sudden and horrifying as I claimed?) and announced I need Vitamin D. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??!!!??!? My blood tests said my D was FINE!!!! I took one of the giant D pills (cuz hey, she's a damn DOCTOR, right?!?!) was ohsosick for 3 days and in utter misery at work, and said F that. I'll keep assuming I'm bipolar. My shrink ordered copies of my blood tests, and since he's the only really trustworthy (if conservative) doc I know down here, I wanna see what he thinks. Gar. I'm really considering going back to just being crazy. It's cheaper.

I guess it's not such a bad thing I haven't had much web access the last coupla weeks- moving is not particularly interesting- but I did, on my former web home, receive contact from someone I used to... know, and it's had me thinkun a lot. I'm a little sad, confused, weirded out that people can be so frigging stupid about what's good for them- and glad I ended up in the best place for me. Complicated stuff, the deets wouldn't really be appropriate for public consumption- I'd love to have the guts to just bare all, but I'd make people I love very uncomfortable, so I've consoled myself reading Miss Manners' tomes and thinking what a perfect world would be like.

Time goes by... so slowly

Oh, jeez, i just quoted frickin' Madonna. Sorry, it's early, and my iPod has a weird affinity for "Hung Up"- every time I restart the shuffle, that song comes up within the first ten, so it gets in my head a lot. Waiting to do a double whammy of doc appointments today. Hoping to actually be told something besides the medical-lingo version of, "Huh. Well, there's something wrong.. come back and give me more money in a month!" No, my nice shrink doesn't do that- as I've said before, he's the best doc I've ever had of any kind. Just nervous about the endocrinologist- she's an unknown quantity, and specialists so far haven't given me much but heartburn over my bank balance. Speaking of which... no, let's not. Don't wanna think about it. :0

GO. LOOK. AT. THIS. WEBSITE. RIGHT. NOW!!!

Holy cow, y'all- it's the "Worst Prom Dress of the Day" list, and it is EPIC. GO LOOK NOW.

Hey, y'all, read this

Kate Harding, the kickass woman who heads up "Shapely Prose," has an article at Salon today that I'm digging, about choosing not to have kids. I totally identify- I'm 31.5 now, still crazy, still not married, and the idea of having a teenager or two around while I'm dealing with menopause gives me the shivers. It's a good article, references a couple of good stories from Jezebel- go read it!

One of the Last of the Great Romantics

So... the new McGee blog. I'm trying to figure out the best way to run it- set up synopsisisisises for each book (with spoiler warnings?) and then add criticism and secondary source references? (Crap, I gotta relearn how to do footnotes!) Or should I not post anything until I have all that together? I don't wanna go method 2, cause it could take months to post ANYTHING, especially now that I've found out UF (BOOOOO, Gators!) has an enormous collection of John D. Macdonald info, and I'm gonna want to try to access that at some point- if they'll even let a failed English major from a rival school with no pretensions to scholarship into the archives. I think maybe I'll go method 1, even though I wouldn't want anyone who sees the blog now to think that's all there is/ will be to it. It's already getting hits, in it's half-xml'd-no-content state, and I'd like to get some actual content up soon, before the hits stop. Any opinions? Comment, email, call me- opinions are welcome on this one.

Like a bird in my chest, fluttering

Yay, Klonopin!