After two days of my girlfriend having to sleep on the floor in the dining room, we decided it was probably best if I went elsewhere for the duration of my cold. Or at least until I got past the part where i was up coughing shit up all night. (This has truly been one of the most disgusting colds I have ever had.)

So I find myself in my mother’s living room at 4 AM, supposedly sleeping on the sofa, while my mother is out cold in her recliner, sleeping to the faint sounds of early morning weirdness from PBS. Somehow the scene reminds me of one from a Beavis and Butthead episode.

So much for the theory of me going somewhere where my coughing won’t disturb anybody.

Still, she’s a trooper and seems to be able to sleep through all but the worst of my hacking. (Ironically, my cold has shifted gears into the dehydration phase, so the hacking is somewhat limited.) I keep expecting her to wake up and go to bed, but nope, she’s good where she is apparently.

I, on the other hand, am awake at 4 AM. I’d blame the TV, but the reality is that i rarely sleep my first night in a strange place. And at 4 in the morning, it feels stranger than most.

[I bring my breakfast into the dining room/office where Aack is playing Fallout 3.]

[Game voice chattering]

Aack: blah, blah, blah, plot, blah, blah, blah

Me: How’s it going?

Aack: They want me to pretend I’m a slave, so I left all my stuff, but they kept attacking me. So the hell with the plot, I’m gonna kill them all and let god sort em out.

[Aack reloads her game]

[Silence. After a moment, the sound of violence.]

Aack [loudly and distressed]: They took my shit! [Pauses for a moment, then sounding incredulous] They took my shit!!

Aack: VSC, they took my shit!

[I snicker]

Aack: It’s not funny, they took my shit! You don’t understand, at this level, I had some really good shit!!

[Clatter of keys]

Aack [to herself]: I’ll show those fuckers. I’m gonna get my shit and fuck them up.

[a few minutes of silence other than the occasional mouse click and keyboard clatter.]

Aack: oh shit.

Me: what?

Aack: I loaded my saved game, and dropped off my shit in town so they couldn’t steal it, but I did it a scene too early, and now I’m running around in my underwear.

—–

[gunfire]

[explosion]

[Aack laughing]

Aack: Ohhh… [giggling] Whoops. An escaped slave accidentally ran over a grenade and blew up. [explosion. Aack laughs until she snorts] There goes another one.

—–

I love this game. Specifically, I love Aack playing this game

My mother leaves on a trip for Washington DC at 4 AM Monday morning. It’s a Sufi thing meaning damn near every moment of the trip is planned out for her.

This would drive me completely insane. But then again, I don’t really do a lot of site seeing vacations, I like vacations where you go away and do nothing unless it appeals. For example: there is a lake near the cabin we’re going to in August, with a boat at our disposal and everything. While I like the lake, I find visiting it completely optional, and am frequently just as happy hanging out at the cabin.

But I digress. Back to Mom and her trip. We went over for the requisite just-in-case-you-die-on-your-trip dinner. My mother chattered non-stop the entire time about work, her friends, her trip, her lists for prepping for her trip, the weird old shit she found in her cosmetics bag, her cat sitter (not me), and her expectation that I come over to give the cat water out of my hand like she does so he doesn’t feel too lonely while she’s gone. 
It was a lot like our standard phone conversations.

In the car afterwards, Aack mentioned how manic my mother had seemed. Apparently it does run in the family!

I finally got a new ATM card, as well as a refund from my bank for the European porn, but I haven’t received my new ATM code, so I can use it as a credit card, but can’t make deposits or withdrawals. Oops.

I waited to hear about the job, didn’t even get a phone interview. Oops.

I’m still waiting to hear about prop 8, but I guess I’m feeling more resigned. I alternate between anxious and hopeful. Except now I don’t even do that these days. I think I’m a little bit numb.

I’m glad tomorrow is the end of waiting about this election. I hope I feel the same way at the end of the day tomorrow.

The labels for work finally arrived. I remember now, I hate MS Word’s mail merge.

I waited long enough to finish one pattern, “Shut your whore mouth”. I then promptly started a new project, but it wasn’t even the one I wanted to start. But there was a reason: much like my beloved “whore bag cum dumpster” project, this is an ode to rage. I drove through a yes on prop 8 rally and promptly lost my mind: the project I’ve been working on for the last week is an Americana sampler that has had the phrase “Sweet Land of Liberty” replaced with “Gaping Assholes Inside!”.

What can I say, it seemed appropriate at the time. And it’s helped with the rage.

Life is in a holding pattern right now.

I can’t really shop for anything 1) because I’m broke, and 2) because I had to cancel my atm card because someone bought European subscription porn with it. (Read: someone other than me. If I have to pay for it, I want access to the account.)

I am losing my mind about proposition 8, which is the one that will determine if my girlfriend and I get to get married next year. I already chose not to do it this year, a decision that may give me an ulcer over the next two weeks.

I am still waiting to hear from the Monterey Bay Aquarium about whether or not I got an interview. See above statement about ulcers.

I am waiting at work for labels so I can finish the project from hell which we’ve been trying to get out the door for several months now. Blah.

I am waiting to start any new cross stitch/embroidery patterns until I finish any 2 of the projects I’m currently working on. It doesn’t even have to be the big projects. I have two I can knock out with about 15 minutes of work on each of them.

I also believe I understand why people sell their work. I didn’t used to, I always assumed that if you put that much effort into it, why would you give it away? But thinking about switching jobs suddenly made the light dawn: without the Bitch Scientist, “Fucking Cunt”, “Shut your whore mouth” and “Whore bag cum dumpster” would simply be funny, with no intrinsic meaning for me. I started thinking about what I’d do with them. Give them away? Perhaps. My coworker or my boss might be worthy recipients. And while I would definitely want pictures of the work, the process of making these items is really where the meaning is. Having a cross stitch on your desk that says “Fucking Cunt” is funny, but the process of making “Fucking Cunt” was the meaningful, or at least slightly cathartic part.

Of course, to sell something, I’d have to finish something. Damn.

… my step mother’s 5xth birthday.

55th? 56th? One of the two I believe. It was also the day of her second locally anesthetized surgery in the last two weeks. (The port they put in for chemo didn’t work, so they had to replace it. Incidentally, she has her “first” chemo appointment today (assuming the new port works).)

…the day John Morgan was born.

That would be my boss’ second child. Very cool, we’re all very happy for him. I got to see an awesome picture of my boss’ daughter (she’s 3) “holding” (with help) her brother. She looked very pleased with her new toy

…the day of the all hands meeting.

That did not prove to be a positive experience for anyone. It’s the first time I’ve seen a speaker not applauded at the end of their presentation. Of course, she just explained how much our benefits are going to cost us next year. I think the straw that broke the camels back was finding out that the Nurses Union was going to continue to get free benefits for the next two years.

… also the annual safety training.

It occurred immediately following the meeting. The presenter was HORRIBLE. Hint: chances are, the members of 2-3 dozen independent research labs aren’t going to give a shit about being broken into “teams” for some arbitrary competition. Also, if you expect us to be tested on this stuff afterward, you might want to bother to show the slides that actually explain the concept in question.

I know, I just asked for a slide show. This should convey HOW BAD that training was.

My boss missed both the meeting and the training because his wife was in labor. She gave birth round about the time the training from hell ended. If I’d been thinking, instead of telling people where my boss was, I could have given him an awesome gift, and faked his presence at the safety training. It would have been easy to do, and would have spared him the video when he gets back. Oops.

…the first time I saw Maki shed.

Chameleon’s shed in patches rather than all in one piece, and their skin feels like heavy printer paper when you touch it. It’s neat.

…when I started re-reading Microserfs for the first time in at least 5 years.

The book starts in the year 1993. It’s an absolutely facinating read: Coupland’s characters spent a lot of time wondering about the future (among other things). It’s awesome (literally) to read about this after having lived through it here in the Bay Area.

And amazingly enough, while certain details seem slightly dated, the book holds up amazingly well.

Wikipedia mentions Coupland’s book J-Pod as the Google generations version of Microserfs. What does it say about me that I feel Microserfs was definitely the better of the two books, and I identified with it more?

I made a tactical error.

I let my girlfriend live.

Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not angry at her. It was just a mistake to allow this sleeping together thing go on for three nights in a row.

See, last year my girlfriend quit being able to cope with the ultra-hard mattress I chose when I bought a new bed. So she got a twin long sleep number bed, and started sleeping in it. While sleeping in separate beds was a little weird, it was, ultimately, most awesome for both of us. She got a bed that didn’t hurt her back. I didn’t have to share my bed with someone who kept turning over all night because she couldn’t get comfortable. We both got sleep. And since we shoved the two beds right next to each other, we could still hold hands as we went to sleep, even if curling up with one another required one person switch beds entirely.

It was a somewhat odd, but functioning solution.

Until Tuesday.

Tuesday night, in the middle of the night, I awoke to my girlfriend screaming in her sleep. I finally managed to awaken her from a horrid nightmare she kept having. Because she was upset, she crawled into bed with me so I could hold her. It was fine. I hate to be alone after nightmares as well. We fell asleep in bed together.

Wednesday morning I was tired, but I found out we got the house on the way to work, and that information made me so manic it didn’t matter.

Wednesday night she talked about how nice it was sleeping together, and how her back didn’t hurt at all. So Wed she crawled into bed with me and fell asleep. At one point in the middle of the night I woke up and was irritated because I couldn’t quite get comfortable with her there, but rolled over, found a good spot and went back to sleep. Unfortunately I had to get up and go into work early because I had to deal with some business calls that involved the East coast, and they needed to happen in the morning, Eastern time. So while I slept okay, I was still sleep deprived, two days running now.

Last night we were both tired. My girlfriend wanted to go to bed early. I wanted to go to bed early. She was in her bed. I was in mine. When she said she wanted to sleep with me again, I tried to be neutral about it. She replied “Normal couples sleep together.” I refrained from pointing out that she was the one who hated my bed. I refrained from saying “no, I need to fucking sleep.” I refrained from doing a god damn thing to make sure I got the rest I needed. I just said “okay” and let her climb in.

Now, admittedly, I’ve been feeling a little weird about the part where we don’t share a bed. I do like holding her and cuddling her. Also, the part where I lost 100 pounds has made it so we both fit in bed a lot better. It’s possible for both of us to be in bed and not touch. But because it was cold, she kept snuggling up. Which 1) kept making me get too hot, and 2) meant I could feel every movement she made.

Because I kept getting hot, I kept scooting over. She kept following me. Because I could feel every damn movement, I kept waking up.

Who really knows though. I may well have slept like shit *anyway*. And I know me. Just because I was aware of her when she woke up doesn’t mean she ever actually did anything. But when I’m tired and sleep deprived, I will happily blame anything that comes to my attention, regardless of whether or not it actually deserves that blame.

We were in bed, lights off, by 10:30 PM. By 5:15 this morning, I was furious, and she could tell. She offered to move beds. I told her she could if she wanted. (Subtle? No thanks…) I think she did move. But by then I was so wound in frustration that I gave up and got up.

Like I said, I know me. When I get that worked up, it takes me about an hour to wind down enough to go back to sleep. And then I oversleep and make myself late for work.

I got ready, fed the dogs, went in and told her that I loved her and that I was going to work. In a sleepy voice she asked if it was her fault. I looked at the clock. 5:45 AM is no time for honesty.

“No baby, I’m just awake, and I figured I might as well go into work. Go back to sleep, and I love you.”

I even sounded like I meant it. And I did. I do love her. And I really did decide I might as well go into work. Through all of this there have been no questions in my mind about the validity of those two particular statements.

Which is why letting her live falls into the category of “tactical error”.

So Ici has been blogging daily since the new year started. I know that doesn’t sound like much (since it’s what, the 4th?), but that would be more posts than I’ve done in the last 6 months.

So I decided I should post something. And once again I have absolutely nothing to say.

Let me think.

I’ve lost 89.2 pounds. And I should want to talk about that. But I don’t find I have a lot to say. I’ve switched from eating to shopping, which I really can’t afford. I have actually discovered I like clothes shopping, but there’s no point in buying a lot of clothes because I’ll just get too small for them. I do like the change though.

Work is getting really stressful because we’re getting ready to move next month. But there’s not really that much to say about that either.

Life is good, my relationship is good, the electric bill because of all the reptiles is obscene, and I spent too much on Christmas, but it was a lot of fun.

Christmas was rather amusing… My dad’s family was wonderful. My mom’s family was a train wreck. Even though there was no actual family gathering planned for that half the family, names were drawn. Apparently I was the only person who actually figured out how to get the presents to the people my girlfriend and I were chosen to give gifts to. My mother and her sister have decided that my cousins no longer get to be in the gift exchange because they didn’t get gifts from them this year. Please note: they have screwed other people in the gift exchange before, this was just the first time it was the two of them.

My girlfriend got screwed too when my uncle got her a gift, but then told her it would cost her $50 to have it. Then when he tried to install it, he broke one of the plastic pieces on her car. In the end the installation didn’t work out, so he never really gave her anything. (I told him what to get her: a bloody Starbuck’s gift card. Those make her obscenely happy.)

But really, other than the fact that my uncle is a tacky little fucker, none of this is that big a deal; most of this just shows the bad blood that happens to be running through the family right now. Funny. All the deaths in my dad’s side of the family brought everyone closer together. Grandma’s health issues seem to be slowly tearing the family apart.

I should care, I really should, but I don’t. Whenever I get sucked into doing anything with that side of the family I usually regret it, and this slow degradation means I never have to see them all in mass. Frankly, it just seems like a bonus.

New Years was special: my girlfriend got the flu on New Year’s Eve, The main sewer line backed up on New Years Day, and last night’s storm blew a chunk of the fence down in the back yard. But A is better now, and we don’t have to pay for the fence or having Roto Rooter come fix the sewer line.

And may I just say, I was pleased with my Roto Rooter experience. They said someone would be here in an hour, the guy was here in 20 minutes. He had the house back up and running in 30 minutes. It was very nice.

I don’t really have any New Year’s resolutions. I do have 2 goals though:

1. No unplanned hospital stays.
2. Fewer trips to the emergency room.

Granted they’re not exactly things I can control, so perhaps it’s more of a wish list. But a girl can dream.

Happy New Year, y’all!

I’d forgotten. Completely forgotten.

I just got the email, it’s time to contemplate the “annual swim party” at Casa de la Step-Other.

I officially feel ill.

You know, I was going to blog about this, but I’m not sure I want to think that much about it right now.

Suffice to say, I currently feel ashamed about my body, I’m confused and concerned about money, and I’m stressed about a phone call from my aunt, indicating that there’s something I either need to sign or contest. Last time there was something to sign or contest I got screwed. If it involves the same parties as last time, this will be ugly. And the issue where I feel like shit about my body is still waiting for me in the office when I get back.

I can’t believe all this shit right before I leave for vacation. I seriously doubt that 4 days will be enough to let go of it and relax.