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!

"It would be one kind of penance. And there are never enough kinds. Not for him. Not for me. And certainly not enough for you, my friend."

Guess what? I'm starting another page, one about John D MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. They're great reads, cover twenty years of Florida history, include bazillions of broads and bodies and adventures, and I really haven't found any good web pages on them. The Wikipedia entry isn't bad at all, and does have links to all the books, and there's this other, older page I kinda like, and quite a lot of blogs referencing the books, but nothing that's truly comprehensive. So I'm gonna tackle it this summer.

I can see for miles and miles...

I tell you what, this liquid b12 is amazing. I have energy, which is great cause I'm up to my neck in paint, I've lost 5 lbs in two days (they weren't joking about metabolism-increasing!), and I'm hoping it'll forestall any recurrence of the scary blind spot- that mess was painful. No joke, the b12 hits fast, and you end up jiving and jittering and ready to run in circles around your desk 'til it calms down. Not great for work, but waaaay better than apathetic grumpiness. I might even try quitting smoking again. Maybe- let's not get too ambitious too fast. :)

No comment, besides this:

Work in progress

"When a woman ceases to alter the fashion of her hair, you guess that she has passed the crisis of her experience."

Yep, dyein' my hair again... second time today. It came out ok, but it was exactly the same light brown-with-a-little-green that my eyes are and... no. Just, NO. So I'm workin' on it.

(Later) Oh. Huh. My bro calls it "Leelu Dallas Multipass red," and... it's not quite, but close. Put it this way, my eyebrows are too dark. Whoops!



It's actually closer to this, except darker on the bottom layers, which makes it look like I get outdoors a lot more than I really do:



and 5 minutes of dye on my brows was enough to lighten them the necessary tiny bit, so yay.

Hulk Smaaaaaaaaaash!

So there's this Event held in Central Florida the first week in June. It's a huge festival, with all kinds of parties and gatherings held all over the area, including days at the company I work for, which does not actually sponsor the event. I got a call at work today from the TA for a man, due to arrive with his family tomorrow, who was just mortally offended by the idea of my employer being connected to this event in any way. The TA requested a phone number for someone at my workplace who could "comfort" the client. It's been three hours since I took that call, and I'm still absolutely ballistic about it. I've had similar calls before, and I can never get over someone thinking it's okay to announce, "Hey, I'm a bigot!" about this one group when they'd never, ever say it in public if they thought the same thing of other groups, like, oh, brown people or fat people- scratch that, they might say it about us less-thinners if they'd say it about teh gheys. I'm just... utterly enraged. For one thing, my employer happens to be "committed to diversity." Ya know what that means? For the one week a year there are a lot of people in red shirts about, there are 51 other weeks where your concierge, your wait staff, your Costumed Entertainers (hee... are they the opposite of "Watchmen"'s Costumed Adventurers?), are pretty darned likely to have orientations you aren't aware of. A certain number of them may well be LGBT- or even *gasp* NOT, and you might not know... cause it's NOT YOUR BUSINESS, thankyouverymuch.

I wouldn't be quite so angry if I hadn't, during the very tactful convo, suggested to the TA that maybe she could help her client by Googling the schedule of events and telling them which days are planned where so that they could choose alternate destinations. I came home and did that myself, and found the calendar (euFURbia!?! Squee, I wanna go!!), as well as links to some truly bigoted nonsense which I REFUSE to link to, from certain groups demanding their followers boycott this week and asking that this event we don't sponsor or plan be held at night only, with separate, special party tickets. Number one, the festival in question has pretty awesome parties planned at night already, and number two...whatwhatWHAT???!!!!!??? Are we gonna start doing this every day? Do we need new drinking fountains, too? And how, exactly, do you get someone to prove they are or aren't of an orientation? Is there a membership card? Shoot, I'd kiss a girl just BECAUSE if asked to "prove" anything like that. GARRRRRRR, I'm just livid. And ya know what? I've had two weekends in a row at my workplace, and was ready to chill on my days off this week, maybe paint some of the new apartment, but I think, just 'cause of this garbage, I might be turning out at some point this week, too, just to hope to help hear the local news talk about a "record crowd." Bigots. Grr.

Whew!

We're okay for the moment, house-wise. Thank God, and Dan. Went to the MK today, then the pool, then for a darn good dinner. I iz tired. And sunburned, but I look better browner, so that's kinda good.