I want to be crafting, not blogging. There’s a reason that I’m not and it involves the Fluffy Little Fucker, and letting my girlfriend sleep.

You see, I failed to plan accordingly, and though I have projects out here, I can’t really work on them because in all cases there is one essential part I need locked in my office with the howling fur demon from hell.

Let’s back that up a bit. Last night we tried an experiment. Usually we lock the cat in the office when we go to bed. We decided to let the cat “sleep” in the main room with us. He didn’t do a lot of sleeping. And neither did I. On the one hand, it was very sweet that all he wanted was to nuzzle my hand. On the other hand, all I really wanted to do was sleep. And because I was half asleep through all this, it never occurred to me to lock him back in the office. This makes me the dumb ass in this scenario.

After about 5 hours of this bullshit, it finally occurred to me to put the little asshole back in the office. The problem is, the process of getting up and doing this woke me up. I’ve been awake ever since. After about half an hour, the cat finally quit howling his indignation, and Aack was able to go back to sleep.

After an hour of laying in bed I finally gave up and started reading. I’m currently reading The Subversive Stitch, which is a wonderful book, but I can’t read more than 3 pages before I have a deep seated need to go make something. And therein lies the problem: every project I have out here requires something from the room with the howling beast in it. And Aack is still sleeping. And since it’s my fault we were up until 3 this morning, I really feel I should let her.

So I’m blogging. Under protest. Because it’s something I can make, even if it doesn’t involve a needle and thread.

Fucking cat.

Trouble is having a bad day.  His day apparently started with a lack of intestinal fortitude, as evidenced by the state of his tail, and the walls in the office.  (My morning hasn’t been too peachy either.  Scrubbing cat shit off the walls is not my idea of a good time.)

His day took a step downhill when he got  a bath to clean him up.  And it got worse still when he went to the vet and got 3 vaccinations & an antibiotics shot for his butt worms.

Oh yeah, did I mention? My fluffy little fucker got himself a tapeworm, and occasionally drops wriggling little egg sacks out of his ass. Terribly disgusting. Right up there with cleaning cat shit off the walls…

You know, between the cat and the California Employment Development Department (read: the unemployment office), I’m kind of having a shit day too.

… 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?

So I had my ADD appointment today.

I scored 20 out of 20 on the two different little tests he ran me through.

Go Team!

And I do have a diagnosis as well: Combined type.

That would be the one where you have both the inattentive type of ADD as well as the hyperactive type of ADD. I’d always thought they were mutually exclusive, but apparently not. (He asked me the main reasons I’m seeking treatment: 1. Poor impulse control (that’s a hyperactive type symptom), and 2. Procrastination (that’s an inattentive type symptom.))

Once they’re vetted past my primary care physician I get drugs. Ritalin in fact. Woot!

I also scored well on the Bipolar test he put me on, but a lot of those symptoms overlap with ADD and he said that he doesn’t think I have it. He asked me to keep a log of symptoms though, just in case.

So day 1: lots of mania and “up”, but I think that’s mostly because I’m excited to have a diagnosis and the part where he told me that some drugs will help with some of my symptoms. According to him I’ll still have to work hard to maintain, they can’t fix that, but some of it will get easier. Like procrastination, and maybe a little bit of impulse control about food. Woot!

In other, unrelated news, after eating 2 earthworms and 2 pinkies yesterday, Dr. Sampson hasn’t shown his face at all. I dug him out to make sure he was still alive, and he dug himself deeper into his hole. As long as he moved, it’s all good. Maybe I’ll start feeding him pinkies on Fridays so he’s not so hungry over the weekend.

I have a toad that eats mice.

I RULE.

Mr. Morton
Originally uploaded by Valued Sony Customer

My girlfriend surprised me last night with a new frog! (She knows me too well.) Mr. Morton is a pacman frog, which I’ve always wanted one of because they’re funny and neat. He’s really tiny right now, less than 2″ across. (I say across because they tend to be as wide as they are long.) They get to be pretty damn big though, an adult pacman frog can be anywhere between 6 and 12 inches across! Right now he eats crickets, but eventually he’ll eat mice. How fucking awesome is that?

So this morning I sort of snapped.

Yesterday I worked my fucking ass off and ended up staying late. This whole week has been insane here at work, and next week isn’t looking much better. My favourite thing about my job is that it doesn’t get like this too often.

So when it got like this, and the money disaster came tumbling in to boot, I crossed into the realm of the uber-stressed, and have wavered back and forth between depression, hysterical crying, and insane fury ever since. (Oddly enough, I’ve been able to keep all three of these in check at work without making any concious effort on my part. I suppose this means my girlfriend is continuing to rub off on me. For once I am glad.)

By afternoon yesterday I was stuck in rage. In the lab I was imagining faces for the machines and software so I could imagine throttling them. By virtue of their presence, (and nothing else, these people had done NOTHING to me) my officemates had made it to the gruesome death list. By the time I hit my commute I was determined to borrow my girlfriend’s gun and head straight for the range. It was that or I was afraid I’d start trying to run over the neighborhood kids and pets for entertainment.

But when I got home the possessor of the fire arm wasn’t present, and I don’t remember where she hid the key to the gun case.

I wandered into the newly immaculate middle bedroom and looked around, trying to figure out what to do next. The pug, who is expressly forbidden to be in this room (he likes to pee in it when we’re not home) followed me in. I spanked him so hard he tripped and did a header.

At which point I realized I might be about to seriously cross a line.

I pulled up a chair, cleaned off the old alter, lit a candle and some incense and just sat there staring at the smoke and flame. It wasn’t a ritual. There were no prayers, no invocations. It was just some time spent doing a reassessment.

The first thing I decided was that my plans of figuring out just how seriously fucked I was on this next paycheck could wait 24 hours. My entire evening was instead devoted to playing Sam and Max: Reality 2.0 (excellent game, though I still think Sam and Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die was funnier.) I watched South Park. I stayed up 15 minutes past my bedtime to finish my game.

In the morning I ignored both my alarms and instead got up when my girlfriend’s went off. I dicked around until she left, made myself breakfast, and went back to bed. Woke up feeling horny, an amazing thing since my sex drive apparently died about 10 months ago. Proved I can still show myself a good time, then dozed in and out of sleep while lying in the sun. Around 9:30 I finally got up and got dressed. Stopped by the desktop PC to update the music on my PSP. Scrounged up enough change to buy an egg salad sandwich at Togo’s. Drove to Alameda, skipped the office, went straight to lunch. Rolled into work around noon.

When my boss asked what happened, I looked him straight in the eyes and told him a morning appointment ran far longer than I expected.

It’s true. Getting yourself off properly can take a while.

It’s nice to sort of feel human again.

Mood : chipper Music : Twiggy Twiggy vs James Bond – Pizzicato Five