1. "...Heh. Wikipedia calls him (Ben Wattenberg) "a prominent American neo-conservative commentator and writer" which really is just a long-winded way of saying he's a dick." -- my comment: "Ah, so you've met the Jerk Face neighbor!"

2. "Some see it as half empty, others see it as half full, Missy sees a space in a cabinet that's not supposed to be there." --so true :P

And, a Missy-ism just because I'm silly:
me: "....i feel like Kepler :P Spending every waking moment trying to come up with an equation that works and spend my whole life failing :P"

them: " wow"
"you just made a Kepler reference"
"mad points for you"

me: "if i'm comparing myself to scientists from the 16th century, something must be wrong with me :P"

1. Environmental: What do you think of the environment, people trying to 'save' it, etc?
I think we're gonna end up how we end up. Sure, it's nice to want to protect our habitat, but in the end, the Earth is just going thru it's normal process of being a planet. So, if it decides to have a world-wide 10.0 earthquake, recycling some cans and bottles isn't going to do much.

2. Political: Even if you don't pay attention to politics, what's important to you regarding how this country continues to evolve (or devolve)?
Making sure people can pay their bills and eat is probly the first priority at the moment. The rest will shake out in the wash.

3. Personal: Are you happy? Why/why not?
Extremely so. However, this has been one of the worst weeks for me in awhile. It'll pass.

(I suppose it'd help if I posted it on the correct date, eh? I for someone reason thought today was 8/1...wishful thinking I suppose)

1. Environmental: What do you think of the environment, people trying to 'save' it, etc?

3. Personal: Are you happy? Why/why not?

Remember to post these in your blog and don't forget to post a comment letting us know where you posted them by posting a link here!

I yelled at a guy today on the way to the BART station in WC who stepped directly into traffic. He asked me how old he looked and my reply was, "I have no idea, but walking directly into oncoming traffic, you act like you're 2! I don't want you to get hit and I certainly don't want you to get hurt!!". Then he told me to mind my own business most likely because he was embarassed as all hell. I would be too if I did something that dumb. It was a stupid, irresponsible mistake. So much for looking out for my fellow man. Asshole. Then something was fucked up on the tracks and they switched platforms at the very last second after my train was 10 minutes late, almost making a bunch of us miss it.

On a lighter note, I saw this on my walk home from the BART station:

My upstairs neighbor is officially a Jerk Face!

I heard him banging around upstairs, and so I once again took magical popsicle's with me upstairs and had to knock a good 6 or 7 or 8 times until he *finally* answered the door with, "Do you MIND?! I'm on the phone!". 'Yes, I do! You can at least answer your door, AND I brought you a magical popsicle!!'. 'Well..uh...I can't have any extra sugar!"..'Yeah? Well, I don't think these have any added, so it's your lucky day'..."I don't even know who you are!"..'I'm your downstairs neighbor and I was TRYING to be nice!!'..."Oh!..."...'Yeah, you have a good day', and I turned around and walked towards the door to the stairs and didn't look back.

JERK FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND he fucking hurt my feelings, which I DON'T fucking need right now.

He's sent us two nasty-grams in the past, stating how he thinks we should behave, so he's obviously done enough spying to know *exactly* who we are. Him playing stupid did not help him any. I'm done trying to be nice to that guy. From now on, I'm just going to be the polite neighbor and try not to get kicked out of my building for being too loud.

However, let me state just how much I feel for this guy. He's obviously a very unhappy person. He obviously is very anti-social (which I would guess means he has other problems attached). He obviously wants to be left alone. And he may not know it,but if he keeps treating people the way he treated me, my fear is that he'll be alone forever. And no one should be alone forever.

So, now, I will move forward in my life. I will do my best to be a good neighbor. I can say that I tried. More than once. And I failed. But I failed trying, and that's what's important. That doesn't make me a bad person. In fact, I believe I'm a very *good* person. I just come off funky most of the time.

Jerk Face. *harumph*

Takes one to know one, so I can call my upstairs neighbor weird. He thinks we shouldn't make any noise ever (tho he makes so much noise that he has *no* idea that he's so loud...how would he unless someone complained?), complains about our noise levels during normal loud hours (9a-10p), and it feels like he just plain doesn't like us based on principal. I try and just ignore it when he's unhappy over silly things like us playing RockBand during the day.

Tonight, after a crappy week, I decided that I would give actually going upstairs and makeing peace with him a try. I brought him a magical popsicle! And he wouldn't open his door! Even after I knocked twice! :/

:(

I am sulky girl. But I tried. I really did! Maybe I need something cooler like home-made baked goods and alcohol.

Oh well...*sigh*

Maybe he reads my blog...dooder, give me a proper chance for you to hate me before you decide that you really do not llike me! I'm really a nice freak! Really!

so be careful of what you say to who about whatever. Email, blogging (your own blog, someone elses, FaceBook, MySpace, etc), comments, chat rooms...just remember that anyone in the world can read what you wrote if it's 'published' somewhere.

With that in mind, I am requesting that NO emails, comments, or anything else related to any events that may have occured this weekend be typed in ANY form on the internets. Nothing will be discussed by phone either. If anyone needs to discuss anything with anyone, I am requesting that it be in person. Anything on my end up to this post has been permanently beleted.

Thanks for respecting my wishes.

I don't think a weekend could have sucked any more than this one. Well, I suppose it could have, just not that much more. Friday, I started ovulating because I wasn't on any hormones, and coincidentally had an O.B. appointment half an hour later. Talk about being lucky!! I walked in there bent over and in major pain. They put me on new hormones and gave me pain meds for the doubled-overness, and that's how I spent Friday afternoon and evening. The rest, we won't go into. Suffice to say, some people on this planet may have learned some harsh life lessons and will hopefully be better for it in the future.

Oh, and I'm an awesome girlfriend :)

But, today starts a new week, and I'm trying to be positive. It helps that I'm on hormones that don't make me fucking crazy, else I probly would have had a nervous breakdown by now.

Thanks to the Special Peoples in my life. I would have troubles with dealing with life's curveballs without you :)

Life is weird.

I like video games that were made for hardcore music geeks and lay music listeners alike. There's something for everybody! Here's a leaked list of the Guitar Hero 4 tracks, and here's the track listing for Rock Band 2.

Each game has some great stuff. I'm impressed with the oddities in RB2 like Lush, Priest, Jethro Tull, Rush's 'The Trees', and others, but GH4 is more hardcore-music-geek oriented. You know...for me :P. And best of all....MASTER! They're putting 'Master of Puppets' in GH4! Fucking rock!! Yes yes, RB2 has 'Battery', which is awesome in itself, but the game who puts in 'Master' first wins, and that's GH4 :P. And Tool! And more AIC! And, 'Paradise City'! And..and...and...oh, just go read the track listings yourself!

RB2 comes out in September, but I don't think there's a release date set for GH4 yet...dammit :P

Update: Apparently, they're saying that the GH4 lineup was a fraud. Does this mean it's going to fucking suck, then? Cause I'm not wasting my money if the lineup isn't spectacular.

This is more for me so I can keep track of how my meds affect me, and how I deal with them:

I know that things are up and down with me right now because of my hormones being out of wack, but I was thinking that if I have been crashing most days this week around 2p, what would cause that? Well, I take 2 of my nerve meds with lunch. Lunch always causes food coma. Maybe the food coma mixed with the meds mixed with wacky hormones is making me crash? So, instead of taking 2 pills with lunch, I'm going to take one at 12p and another at 4p. I have free-reign to take my meds when I want, so I think I'm going to try this schedule for awhile:

8am - 2 pills (as usual, with either yogurt or a poptart)
12p - 1 pill (2 hours before lunch, w/ a small snack)
4p - 1pill (2 hours after lunch w/ small snack)
8-9p - 1 pill (as usual)

Tuesday and Wednesday, I was fine mentally and emotionally until the afternoon around 2p and then I crashed with panic attacks. Both days. That sucked! Stupid hormones. Drinking alcohol and using anti-anxiety meds is a 'pussy' solution in my opinion. I'm not weak-willed, but I also have experienced first-hand that sometimes, you *do* need the meds. But I think it's time for me to start dealing with it on my own, so I am going to try and stay positive on my own. I know I can do it!

I got into this really bad headspace about 2p yesterday and it never really went away. The anti-anxiety meds just made it worse. Thankfully, Josh was hanging out with Ivan last night, so I was able to be meh'ie by myself. I watched 'A League of Their Own' (shut up, I love bad movies :P) and worked on my scarf, played a little Rock Band, and then went to bed about 11p.

This morning started out pretty good. I have the equivalent of a FasTrack for BART, and I got thru the turnstile thingy, but it somehow still didn't register, so when I got to Walnut Creek, it wouldn't let me exit the station. The lady working the booth took my pass, ran it thru some reader, and said, "Well, Happy Thursday! You got a free ride today!". Hehe..yay! Thanks nice lady! I think that's the first nice/good-natured BART employee I've ever encountered. I would imagine most of them are grumpy because of the assholes (depending on the station, the clientele gets a little iffy) they have to encounter all day. One good turn deserves another, so when my UPS guy came in and asked me for a stamp for a bill he needed to pay, I not only gave him one, but offered to take it to the box for him so he could continue on his route.

I don't think I'm a mean or bad person, but I think I could certainly be nicer to the people I'm around (even the ones I don't care for), so I'm attempting to do so! You know, smile at someone walking past me, saying 'good morning' to the people I pass on a daily basis on my walk...even being nice to the ever-unhappy lady who works at the bakery across the street. I think as a whole, us human beings need to be nicer to each other. Do the odd-nice thing for someone! Just dropping someone an email to say 'hi, you rock!' will totally brighten their day. Even if you think it's cheezy, they will probly be elated. Try it!

1. What are your favorite kinds of plant life (plants, flowers, etc)? Why?
My favorite flowers are carnations (because they last a long time) and lilies (because they smell good). I also love the smell of Jasmine, but it makes my allergies go bonkers.

2. Do you associate any memories with certain things (flowers, objects, etc)? Any you'd care to share?
My Mammaw always had at least one Philodendron plant around, so it's only fitting that there's a nice and healthy Philodendron plant in water (keeps the gnats away) situated next to her picture in my work area. I think my love of lilies comes from the fact that they were the first flowers that Josh ever gave me. I associate all kinds of things with events, people, etc. I'm a pretty visual person, and have a pretty good long-term memory. Hell, I even remember my parents' wedding, and I was only almost 3!

3. By what method do you keep track of your memories (blogs, scrapbooks, etc)? If you don't do anything to preserve your memories, how do you keep track of them? Does it matter to you?
I've had a website/blog in one form or another since 1996. I don't have logs back that far, but I have a pretty good memory and remember events that I wrote down. One of those 'you'll remember it if you write it down' things. I also have been keeping scrapbooks since 1995. Concert tickets, brochures from places I've been, hospital bracelets, cards, business cards of friends, pictures...you name it...if it can fit in one of those old photo albums with the clingy covers, it goes into a scrapbook. Nothing fancy tho, I just put things on a page as they fit and go forward. Labeling stuff and putting cutesy stickers and shit like that would take too much effort :P. Also, before my parents got divorced and my mom threw everything from her 'old life' away, I managed to steal my parent's wedding pictures (which have since been a little waterlogged, but they mostly survived) and a bunch of photo albums from when my sister and I were growing up. I started keeping those scrapbooks because an old internet friend of mine has Epilepsy, and the drugs that she took for it caused her major long-term memory damage. So, she kept a record of everything so she wouldn't forget. I decided that maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea for myself either. Cause at 80, I will have done so many things that I probly *will* forget an event or two. Even now when I go thru my albums once in awhile, I'll go, "Oh yeah!! I totally forgot that I did that!". Our time on this planet is short. I believe that we should remember all the stuff we did while we were on it.

1. What are your favorite kinds of plant life (plants, flowers, etc)? Why?

3. By what method do you keep track of your memories (blogs, scrapbooks, etc)? If you don't do anything to preserve your memories, how do you keep track of them? Does it matter to you?

Remember to post these in your blog and don't forget to post a comment letting us know where you posted them by posting a link here!

Good *grief* the week has passed slowly. It's been like 2 weeks since the week started and it's only Wednesday :P. Monday evening, I hung around the house until I had to leave to pick "I" up from the airport. His flight got in early, so that was cool. Yesterday, I went to have sushi (my body is craving iron because of a 20-day deficiency) with M, and then we sat in the hottub, and I was home by 11p.

Aunt Flo *finally* fucking left towne (and don't come back for awhile, either!), and so my hormones are finally leveling out. I haven't needed any anti-anxiety meds since yesterday, so yay! I go see my O.B. on Friday, so we'll see what she has to say. My GP actually admitted since hormone pills weren't working, that this was out of her area of expertise, and that I should go see my O.B., who deals with this kind of complication more regularly than the GP does. Yet another sign of a good doctor!

I woke up this morning feeling like I had a major hangover, even tho I don't. I was bad and stopped and got real coffee again at Peet's, and that helped a little. I cheated and got a little more caff than half (I usually get half and half). I think my brain and body are just tired from the last 3 weeks of my hormones being off. At least my nerves are behaving themselves! My bump to 500mg seems to be going okay except for another round of Mushy Brain Syndrome, which'll go away once my body gets used to the higher dosage. I still need to sit on cold packs here at work cause I sit for long periods of time, but that's not a big deal.

I have absolutely nothing on my schedule tonight, and Josh and Ivan are doing BM hacker stuff, so I think I will watch a bad movie and work on the scarf that I'm making. I gotta have it finished in a week, and I'm on my last ball of yarn. Tomorrow, Josh is making me a chicken dinner (new recipe!), and then I don't think we're doing anything Friday, so that's good. Saturday and Sunday, Josh will be at a campout, and I'm not doing anything but relaxing. It should be a fairly decent weekend.

1. We have a dishwasher here at work. I was putting away dishes this morning, and I took my freshly washed water bottle out of the dishwasher and put the lid thingy on the bottle, then took it across the street to get ice because I like my water cold. I get the ice, and as I'm crossing the street, trying to screw the lid on, I see that I had put it on backwards, so it was all twisted. The first thought that came to me was, "Damn, I hate when my Schwartz gets twisted!!". I took it off and put it back on the correct way and went on with my morning. Un-awake dork is me :P

2. I work for a company of a fairly decent size, and because I do, we sometimes get good contract rates/deals with delivery companies, office supply companies, etc. We switched to SuckAssOfficeSupplyPlace in January, and I haven't had anything but problems with them. Their website is awful and is more difficult to use than the early sites of the 90s, their catalogue makes it difficult to find anything, the prices in the catalogue differ so vastly than what we really pay that it makes it hard to tell if you're selecting the correct item, we aren't 'allowed' to call them to place an order if their suck-ass website is down, and worst of all, there's a $30 minimum. Now, in an office of 5 or more people, the minimum isn't a big deal. An easily attainable goal. But when you have an office of 2, that's harder. We don't use that many office supplies! And when we do, it's paper, which we rarely need. Even paper is only $25 a box, which doesn't meet the minimum. So, I emailed the person in charge of the office supply account and let them know what the issue was, and that this would be an ongoing problem since we hardly ever need any supplies, and when we did, it was always under the minimum. This means that I would have to order my stuff either online from some place like Amazon (which I'm technically not supposed to do), or get it locally, totally (which I'm also not supposed to do) ignoring 'company protocol'. So, I inquired what I should do about it. A week later, 'they still don't have a solution to this problem'. My question: "Why is this difficult?". Why don't they just flag my account, lowering my minimum to say, $20? Or, why not just let me place an order on the fone, thus bypassing the minimum? And so the quote that popped into my head on this one was, "...it's not complicated as say, a *seat belt*". Ah, good ole' Georgy, there for me with a smart-assed quote when I need one even in the afterlife :)

This week is going by incredibly slowly...I have to entertain myself somehow!

Update: The office supply people were able to 'magically' remove my minimum even tho they said yesterday they couldn't. So, yay! I like it when I get my way :)

Aunt Flo's been visiting since 7/3 because my body didn't like the birth control I was on mixed with my nerve medicine. On 7/14, doctor lady switched me to a new pill. On 7/17, I started going nutso. I had a 5 hour panic attack. My doctor told me to get off all birth control, have a regular cycle, and call her on Monday (today) once my moods got back on track. I got thru the afternoon on 2 low-dose xanax, made the train ride and walk home, put my bag on the counter, and slumped over crying. It was obnoxious. Josh helped me to the bedroom where I promptly passed out for a few hours.

I made it thru the night alright, but wasn't sure I was going to make it to work the next day. I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep until 6a. I wrote a mostly inelidgible note to my boss telling her I probly wouldn't make it in, and then went back to bed. Josh got up at his normal time, but was working from home that day, which ended up being a good thing. I got up at like 10 and announced I was going to Target to pick up a perscription for Ativan and some other things, and that I would be back. I got my stuff done at Target, stopped at a friend's for some stuff (thanks!), and made it to the garage. I shut the car off, got out, saw how much crap there was to bring inside, and broke down on the floor and called Josh. I was so pathetic and I couldn't even control it. It sucked. Oh Patient One came down and got me and our stuff and we went upstairs.

I decided that the best way to try and keep my mood in check (you know, not breaking down and crying when there's not room in the closet for one more box of whatever :P) was to clean. And clean I did. I put all the Target stuff away. I was to have Munchkin Duty at my place on Saturday, and I needed to de-hair it as much as possible for my allergy-prone munchkins. I washed the blankets that they use (6) and then de-haired one chair that I ended up putting a blanket on later, and also de-haired my computer chair. I took all of the cushions outside and Fabreez'd them with the allergy formula and let them dry in the sun. After I took the blankets out of the washer, I put them on the fence to dry for a few also. As I spent an hour or two outside, I let Helen explore the great outdoors. She spent at least 3 hours out there, and slept the rest of the night. She's learning her boundries and if she behaves, she'll be able to go out more and more (supervised, of course)!

Friday night, some friends of ours came over and Josh made some way-yummy fondu. We played a little Rock Band, and then they went home and I went to bed.

Saturday, I don't remember doing much except crapping around. My head was still a little woozy, and I wasn't feeling very good. I do remember running the roomba like 3 times to get as much crap and hair off the floors as possible. Around 5, I took a shower and went and met up with The Three Munchkins, where we had sushi, and it was pretty good. I took the Munchkins back to my house where Josh and I entertained them with w0w for awhile (first josh and all his cool stuff, then how Josh and I play together...they were pretty impressed by that!). After that, we taught them how to play Rock Band. Like any other first-timer, they started out a little rough, but eventually got the hang of it. I knew Mom would be proud that #1 played 'My Iron Lung' :P. They were picked up around 11p, and I went to bed shortly after. All in all, it was a fun night. Allergies didn't explode too bad, so that was good too.

I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 12p yesterday. I had my coffee and then made myself bacon and scrambled eggs. They were yummy. I still was feeling pretty run down. I spent the next 3 hours or so on the couch listening/watching old George Carlin specials. I fell asleep eventually, and Josh paused it for me. I woke up about 8:30p or so and Josh made me some food and we watched TV til about 11p, and then I went to bed again. Soooo run down.

This morning, I took my car in to get the $850 worth of work it needs done on it, and got a ride to work from the nice guy that owns the place. I still feel pretty much like shit. I want to cry at everything still, and there isn't much that can make me happy at the moment except maybe a nap, which I can't take because my car's in the shop. Oh, and somewhere along the line, I lost my damn case to my fone, which means I gotta go get another one. Meh. I put in a call to my doctor's office, but I don't think there's a whole lot she can do until my body evens out. But these mood swings are killin me.

It turns out that I was supposed to get my check 2 months ago, but the idiot government sent the check to my *old* address even tho I have been at my *new* address for a year and two months. You know, the kind of dumb bullshit one can expect from the government. Anyway, I called once and was on hold for half an hour, and then they hung up on me. I called back a 2nd time and was on hold for 38 minutes and talked to this nice lady who got my new address and made the changes, and then told me it could be at least 6 weeks before I see my check. Oh yay. Thanks guys! :P

I'm spending my entire paycheck this week on car repairs. I could really use that check right now. The Donger needs to smog her car, pay the fees, and still eat!

Oh well..I'll get it sometime I'm sure...

1. How come we have to put so much effort into keeping our bodies healthy? Has it always been this hard?
I have no idea, but it's a huge pain in the ass. And unfortunately, it gets harder with age. Add doctors screwing up and misdiagnosis on top of that, and if you're not paying attention, you have a real issue on your hands. First, one doctor screwed up cutting me open in March 2006. Then another doctor misdiagnosed me for 3 months while staph bacteria took over my body. I wasn't properly diagnosed until the end of May. Then my body started the process of healing, and ran into a brick wall from all of the wrong medicines I was given. Then for the next year and a half, instead of trying to figure out what was wrong with me, they just threw pain meds at the problem. And while being high is fun for awhile, doing it as a way of life sucks. It wasn't until I started theorizing that maybe a large part of my problem stems from complications from the original cutting me open that anything started to move forward. Then I fired all my doctors and started going to a new GP who was like, "Oh ya, we can totally help you with that"...and she did! But, it's a delicate balance, being in good health. You *totally* have to watch your back and take charge when it comes to your health. If you're already healthy, just try not to eat like shit too much and exercise once in awhile. But if you have some condition that requires chronic doctors' visits, *be on top* of things. Take detailed notes about your health. Keep track of the stuff you imbibe, when, how it makes you feel, etc. Myself, I have a 'daily pain index' that I keep on a Google calander that does me nicely. My doctor likes it too! I think if we find the *correct* balance, taking care of ourselves won't be a problem. It's finding that balance that's a royal pain in the ass. I'm still workin on that one, but am 75% there! And *that* is better than nothin' :)

2. Why do you think some people put things like work and 'having nice things' before just being a happy person?
Well, it's part of 'the American Dream', isn't it? Nice cars, nice clothes, nice house, etc. I know people who live like this, and on the surface, it seems to work for them. But while they pile on the nice things, it doesn't always seem that their happiness remains. Me, I live paycheck to paycheck. I can pay my bills, and I try to live within my means, which I do an okay job of. I have problems if an unexpected bill pops up, but you can't help some things. I've had most of my clothes for at least 5 years. Hey, they fit and don't have holes in them, so who needs new ones? :P. I drive a car that has almost 175k miles on it. I'm pretty low rent. I have *some* nice things like my messenger bag (which I use everyday) and my puter stuff (which I use everyday), and my sunglasses (which I use everyday), but that's about it. I like being low rent. I think it makes me a better person because I'm not dwelling on all the crap that I own. I like knowing that I possess a relatively low amount of crap.

3. How come human beings in general are so selfish? Don't you think we should be helping each other out instead?
It probly stems from the whole 'survival of the fittest' thing while we were evolving thru the ages, and we never outgrew it. Just trying to live throughout the last 2k years has been tough. Who has time to help out anyone else when you're fighting for your life everyday? And now that things have evolved to a point where we can start sharing our wealth, we forget that we're not all on the same level. And then we start being selfish about everything. It's a way of life that we have all fallen into. While we can't fix all of our social problems, we can all do our part to help it a little. You don't have to support that homeless guy's Bushmill's habit, but you can buy him a sammich or a salad. And while I don' t have much sympathy for humans because I believe any person is smart enough to make or not make something happen for them, I give most of my charity to animals. I currently have a dumped cat that I'm looking out after until I can find him a home. I took Squeeek in when no one else would look at him. I saved z0rgy from a life of feral kittiness. I saved Helen from the mean streets of Oakland. But I believe if any human being wants something enough, they can accomplish it. Asking for a little help here and there to get you to where you want to be isn't a bad thing. But you gotta proove you want to better yourself, otherwise, I have no time for your 'gimme change so I can buy a cup of coffee' spiel.

1. How come we have to put so much effort into keeping our bodies healthy? Has it always been this hard?

3. How come human beings in general are so selfish? Don't you think we should be helping each other out instead?

Remember to post these in your blog and don't forget to post a comment letting us know where you posted them by posting a link here!

If I can get thru today, I can get thru the rest of the week! It's been full of emotional ups and downs due to my dumb hormones being out of wack again. Word to the wise: don't go on birth control if you don't have to. I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with this kinda thing. There are a million different brands, but do I want to keep cycling thru each one until I find something? Or do I just give up and let my body ovulate and just keep a healthy supply of strong vicodin on hand for the day that I can't move? Those are about my only two options. I think if I can just stop 'expelling', my moods will stabilize. Until then, it's half an ativan twice a day so I don't cry at the drop of a hat or start randomly screaming at some poor person who doesn't deserve it.

I *have* been doing a fairly good job at keeping my flailing emotions in check around people, but inside, I want to scream. Scream!

I feel pretty good today tho, except I'm kinda tired. I was bad this morning and stopped at the donut shop across the street from the BART station and got a jelly-filled donut, which I ate with my coffee this morning. I could feel my arteries filling up with plaque, but damn it was good :)

Today looks fairly mellow. I have a few projects in the works, but I'm waiting on people to finish a few things, so my day is looking mellow. Yay :)

Friday night, B&L came over, and Josh made us all beef stew for dinner. We hung out most of the night shooting the shit and playing Rock Band. Saturday, I got up and had my coffee and crapped around for awhile until it was time to take a shower and get ready to go. I loaded up my stuff and my laundry into the car, dropped off Josh at BART, and then spent the rest of the afternoon over at "I"s hanging out. Sunday was brunch at Fellini. I spent the evening watching bad movies and an even worse documentary, and went to bed around 10p. And that was the weekend.

I think my birth control (to stop ovulation) is acting up, because I've been (what is a nice way to put this...) having Girl Time for 2 weeks now. Not a good thing! Now, that's usually fixed with doubling up on the pill for a week or so, then going back to the regular dosage. But in addition to that, I've started having mood swings again. Now, either this particular pill sux, it's mixing with my nerve meds, or both. I went to the doctor today who gave me the go-ahead to up the dosage on my nerve meds (yay, thanks dr.lady!) and put me on a new pill. Hopefully *that* won't make me crazy. Or rather, any more crazy than I already have been acting. I've been keeping pretty good tabs on it, but sometimes I lash out when I have no reason to. I totally went off on my bosslady on Friday because I thought she was putting me down even tho she wasn't. Thankfully, I got to keep my job. But oy vey....we don't need any of that! So, yay for the nerve meds doing their job, but now I have to dink around with a pill. And if that doesn't work, I guess my only option is to just have major pain meds around when I ovulate. I don't see any other option, but we'll see. It sux being a girl, let me tell ya.

This week looks to be completely dead except for Wednesday (going to dinner) and Friday (having ppl over), and I have zero plans on the weekend either. I will take this downtime to chill out, think about some things that require pondering, and be as lazy as I can be.

I'm kinda gettin tired of having to take an ativan to mellow out, and I'm gettin tired of hating everyone for no reason. Come on body, dammit....cooperate!!!

When I was growing up, when I wanted an album, I would do the following: I'd go to the store and buy it, and then come home and go up to my room, stick the tape or CD in the deck, and would read the liner notes while I listened to the album for hours. Oooh, I anticipated new albums coming out. It was rad.

Now a days, I'm reading things about indie musicians whining (of course, what else would they do?) about how they can't get any exposure, so they have to release their stuff thru iTunes. Wah!

But also, more and more, people today are going and downloading one or two songs instead of an entire album. *Why*? Why can't you take the time to sit down and learn an album anymore? Have we become such animated robots that the only way to get new music is to listen to the radio where they tell you which 2 songs off the album are good, and so all you do is listen to those 2 songs? Are these fucking people kidding me? 8 times out of 10, the A&R guy has no idea what the hell he's talking about. I can count *countless* albums where the songs that *aren't* on the radio are better than the ones that are. Take Metallica's 'Black Album'. The last 4 songs are the bestest, and none of them ever got radio play.

When did we become such poor music fans and listeners? Don't you think that only listening to 2 songs off an album is insulting not only to the artist but to everyone involved in making that album? And how can you judge weather or not an album sucks if you don't listen to the entire thing and *learn* it? At least I took the time to listen to a shit-ton of indie shit before I decided I just can't handle most of it. Sure, some of it's passable, but most of it makes me cringe. But at least I made the effort before I passed judgement. And even then, there are exceptions.

In short, by doing things such as only buying singles, we're killing the music industry even more than the record companies are. There is no fix for the current state the music industry is in, but in like 50 years when they finally get their shit together, I'll be interested to see what they come up with.

[/end rant]

Oops, I've been so busy that I hadn't realized I hadn't posted an update in a week! Did anyone notice? :P

The holiday weekend was cool. Friday, we went to the Pharm in Sonoma and hung out with the kool kids. We had a pretty good time! Saturday, I went to bed at 12:30a and woke up at 1p. And it was teh awesome. I can't even remember the last time I slept that late, but it felt good! Saturday, the tKoster's had a BBQ in Concord, and we went and hung out at that. Guinness was had, yummy food was had, and hanging out with cool peoples was fun! Sunday, we had Sunday Sauce 2 (Sunday Sauce and Rock Band) at our house! It was fun, and went off without a hitch. Josh and I had a small meltdown in the middle of it, but managed to get our shit in order and turn it around so we could spend the rest of the day rocking out. It was good times.

Monday evening, I finally got to go to dinner with Squelchy! I had been trying to make that happen for awhile now, and he was in the east bay running some errands, so it worked out! We went to Cato's (always! I love that place) and had pizza and tangerine wheat beer, and all was good.

Tuesday was the Stevie Wonder show. Wow. That's really all I need to say :P. Me, my bosslady, her beau, and another friend of hers all piled into the Family Truckster and headed out to Concord Pavillion. Traffic was totally stopped-up on the road that stretches the 15 miles or so from Walnut Creek to the Pavillion. WTF? We took side streets and alternative routes and got there about 15 minutes after the show was supposed to start. But the show hadn't started yet! Dur? Then at 8:30p, Stevie's 6yo and his older daughter (who was also one of the back-up singers) brought him out on stage. He started out with something like, "So, I was driving around in Concord, and all the traffic lights were out, backing up traffic, and that's why I'm late!". Yay for blind humor! So apparently, the power was out in some of WC and Concord due to the heat. But postponing your show for an hour so your fans can see your entire show? Fucking awesome. It shows that he cares about his fans, and it says a *lot* about the kind of person and performer that he is. The show was totally rad. 98% of the crowd knew 100% of the lyrics. He'd start a song and not sing, and the crowd would start singing. Then they'd stop for a sec, and as if by cue, he'd break in. Him and the crowd went back and forth like this all night. Talk about using your ears effectivly to interact with your audience! He had a crapton of people on stage. 2 keyboardists, 3 back-up singers, a saxaphonist, a trumpeter, 2 guitar players, a bass player, and 2 percussionists. And about the last half hour of the show, his 6yo came on stage and played drums! Like, really played the drums! Not bad for a 6yo, eh? So all in all, it was a great show, and I would *totally* go see him perform again. Teh. Awesome.

Yesterday, I got to go to *wonderful* hot Manteca to do a site inspection for work. Fortunately, it not only doesn't take but an hour or so to get there, but I only had about 15 minutes of work to do. I also stopped at PetSmart and got the baby more wet food cause he's a damn spoiled brat. And then soon enough, I was back on PBA, and all was well.

Today, I've been catching up on a couple days of work, keeping busy. The piles are slowly dwindiling! Yay! My work puter's harddrive blew up last week. With some total geek help from Josh, I was able to get some files off that I needed, and then sent the machine to IT. They had to call the computer maker (left out to protect the guilty crappy-assed company) who gave them a hard time about replacing the drive even tho it was under a 3 year warranty (and the puter is less than a year old), but in the end, my guy got them to replace it! And this guy went above and beyond the call of duty. He forgot to call and give me an update like he said he would, so he called me *on his way home from work*. How cool is that? I'm gonna have to do somethin' nice for him. He's going to try and have it back to me by Monday or Tuesday. Rock!

I don't think I'm doing much tonight. I need to get a few batches of pictures posted, so maybe I'll get the 'oomph' to do that, but probly not :P. I'll get it done soon! Tomorrow, we're having people over to hang out, and I may need to step out at some point to do a notary signing. Saturday I'm hanging out with "I". Sunday, I'm recovering. And next week looks pretty mellow, so that's good!

I go see my doctor on Monday regarding how my nerve meds are doing. I have a few annoying side affects, and I don't think I'm on quite high enough of a dosage, but I think I'll keep with it for awhile and see how things pan out. With meds like this, your body takes extra time to get used to them, and I don't think the side affects are enough to stop taking the medicine after only being on it for a month. I think this might be one of those things that will take 3 or 4 to really figure out if it's what I want/need. But, I'm still feeling pretty good, so yay! I got some new ice/gel packs today, and they fill my nifty little pouch nicely, so yay! Sounds dumb, but when you rely on ice packs to help quell your nerves, it's a big deal.

Anyway, that's about it for me. Look for a rant about how we have become poor music listeners :P

1. Do you ever have 'ghosts from the past' pop their heads in to say hi? Has it happened to you lately? If so, who was it? If not, is there anyone you wish you could find?
Once in awhile, it happens. And when it does, you're like "woah!!". It's nice when people reach out to you! It happens less from someone clicking on this site than it does from say, Facebook, but it's still cool when I get a random email from someone I haven't talked to in years and years.

2. What do you think of Facebook? If you're a Facebooker, have you had any contact with long lost friends of the past?
Facebook is one of those annoying things you just can't seem to get around. I've contacted and been contacted by some ghosts from the past. It's kinda neato! Some respond, others don't. It's just how this kind of thing goes!

3. Pretty much everyone is easily found these days. Do you miss the days of not being able to be found, or do you welcome people finding you? Why/why not?
Since I discovered the internet in 1994, I've always been pretty find-able. I've had my website in one form or another since 1996. All you have to do is Google my name and usually this site is the first on the results list. I don't mind people emailing me. I can choose to read it, or not. But I don't make my address or phone # accessible. If you want that information, you gotta ask for it. Then I'll make the decision weather or not you're worthy of such info :P.

1. Do you ever have 'ghosts from the past' pop their heads in to say hi? Has it happened to you lately? If so, who was it? If not, is there anyone you wish you could find?

3. Pretty much everyone is easily found these days. Do you miss the days of not being able to be found, or do you welcome people finding you? Why/why not?

Remember to post these in your blog and don't forget to post a comment letting us know where you posted them by posting a link here!

1. What activities/events have you done so far this summer? Anything cool?
Just my id3 project, which is now complete. My nerves have been doing better on the meds (cept for today, probly because I've been stressed and busy all day), which has helped my frame of mind. And, I've been doing a lot of relaxing while still keeping busy. So, yay :)

2. What's up for the second half of summer? Got any plans? Anything that you want to do that you haven't done yet?
I have no idea, actually. I was supposed to throw a campout with my friends, but that fell thru. I'm going to a cabin party at the end of September, but that's about it. I guess just more relaxing and feeling better is on my agenda :)

3. What's the bestest thing about summer? What's the worst?
The warm weather, of course!

1. What activities/events have you done so far this summer? Anything cool?

3. What's the bestest thing about summer? What's the worst?

Remember to post these in your blog and don't forget to post a comment letting us know where you posted them by posting a link here!

So, it took about 2.5 weeks of adjustment to my system and gradual increases in dosage of my medicine, but I am going on 13 days of 'very mild' discomfort due to my nerve condition! Yay me! I still am experiencing a *little* discomfort when I sit for long periods (I have learned to love the ice pack), so I don't believe I'm on the correct dosage yet, but I'll let my doctor be the final judge on that when I see her in a couple of weeks. I'm gonna guess another 200mg would probly do me pretty fine.

So, what have we learned here? Most doctors are fucking quacks, and they just throw pain meds at their patients to get them the hell out of their offices. Specialists, like my G.I. will run every test in the book (a colonoscopy, an endoscopy, an ultrasound, an x-ray, and 2 catscans), find nothing, and then call it IBS because they can't figure it out either. And instead of sending them elsewhere to get help, we get told to 'deal with it'. My colon-rectal surgeon is the same way. And then, 45 minutes with a woman doctor I have never met in my life says, "What? I can help you with that!". I heart this lady already :). And even tho I don't like relying on western medicine for obvious reasons, she has at least restored a little faith that not *all* doctors suck ass.