Through the Woods

Had a very nice birthday. Didn't expect anything! Stayed in a great mood almost all day. My coworkers got me some pretty pink and purple mixed flowers I liked a lot. And a card about getting "Lucky" ...guess you have to see it. J sent me red roses, which made me nervous since we've been separated this year. (Red roses are the PDA of flowers.) I almost had a panic attack but I calmed down pretty quickly. "Everything is okay. Nothing's changed. Flowers is flowers. It's the thought that counts."

I'm one of those weirdos who gets happy about their birthdays. I don't care how old I am. Hey, look! I'm alive! Woo-Hoo!!! I get in a weird mood but I didn't act like an idiot too much. Wanted to play instead of work but I was a good girl. Got my stuff done.

For dinner we had veggie pizza with pepperoni (don't judge me) and for singing over: carrot cake with raisins and no frosting. The top was crunchy like a brownie. It was so yummy!

I got: One of the new Crest Sonic toothbrushes, a window mounted hummingbird feeder, a hula hoop, 2 3lb. hand weights and the origami masterpiece is still a work in progress. : )

Funny You Should Say That

Had a drug interaction last Thursday that was pretty extreme. Take a common ADD medicine (according to my doctor that's why I'm special) and a really common, really "safe" decongestant and put them together and boom. Here's what happened.

Lost my favorite perfume on vacation so Tuesday I used something new and kept smelling it a lot to see if I liked it, to see if it was evolving on my skin, to see if it had persistance. By late afternoon, I had irritated sinuses. Really painful. I asked my local allergy experts what to take and they told me to ask a pharmacist. Stopped at Rite Aid on my way home to consult and told her I am sensitive to things and what is the safest thing for sinus pressure and pain. She said the safest thing is Sudafed. I said okay. And she said but the Sudafed we have back here behind the counter works way better. So of course I want "way better", never having taken anything like this, why wouldn't I want "way better", right? My sinuses are so care-free that I've gone half my life without this and yet I need the most powerful. *sigh*

Tuesday evening took it, felt *way better*, got to sleep at 12:30. Wednesday, took ADDmed in morning felt like sinus thing coming back took 1 pill in afternoon. Wednesday eve 6pm went to comic book shop. (I am so poor now my indulgence is a weekly comic book : ) Most of the income, yet all of the bills.) Walked in and couldn't see. I thought wow, it's taking my eyes a long time to adjust to the light. Waited 5 minutes standing there while people chatted. Thought wow, I don't remember staring at the sun. I must have looked at a reflection? Went and sat on a stool for a bit, everyone still chatting so I waited. I thought maybe I stood up real fast and got light headed. So it was a while. Between waiting to see and looking at things and buying a book and going home, I got home about 6:45.

Wednesday night I couldn't sleep at all. I kept getting up and going back to bed and getting up and writing things and going back to bed and staying up until Thursday, time to go...

Thursday morning went to work but couldn't get anything done. I was really talkative and really thinkative. I was trying to change something and in the afternoon screwed something up. Of the 4 things I changed I backed up 3.

Thursday night was Z's 16th birthday. Went to the Dad's who's staying at his mom's. I went too for the party. It was okay. About 8 oclock I said can you turn that light off because it's hurting my eyes? My pupils were dilated all the way, no green even visible. The black blind spot kept getting bigger. Couldn't see for 2 hours. My 16 year old drove me for the first time! : ) His dad's car to my house. His dad took me to ER where they gave me Benadryl and things slowly got better. Slept a lot this weekend.

My Changing Body

Wow, I just don't understand why my body is changing so much. My skin used to be smooth but now it's so not. I have bumps in places that used to be flat. My figure is starting to take on an hourglass shape, in reverse. I have "growing pains" in all my bendy spots.

Some people even tell me they can see it in my eyes, how things are changing for me. (I think they just want to sell me a new prescription.) Most embarrassing --and I hate to talk about it but I feel like people already know, just by looking at me-- I have hair growing in grey in places where it used to be dark.

Sorry for the long story, but I'm just hoping somebody out there can tell me how to make this stop.

Thanks in advance!

Re: The Next Post

I couldn't stay sleep so I'm up!

I've never done this before but I am send out my next post as an email to my friends. I wonder if anyone will like it. Because that would be neat!

Things I Am Doing Instead of Sleeping

Couldn't sleep, finally got up... Had to take Sudafed for some kind of alleged allergy and now I seem to be 'fed up. *buh-dum-bum*... So here are the thinkgs I am doing instead of sleeping...

A. Trying to figure out what is up with me this week. I went on vacation last week and came back feeling happy and relaxed. But now my attitude seems different somehow. It's been a weird few days. Not horribly weird, just a little raw. I can tell things are changing, but I don't know what. It seems to be some kind of realignment of self-esteem. Or it feels like a reunion of logic and emotion, does that make any sense? Like a barrier has disappeared and the floodgates are open and head and heart are both super busy having a party, catching up. Thoughts just pop all day and night and some of them are interesting and I have to jot them down. Remind me to pull out my notebook and post them for you. And by "you" I mean the Royal you. And then tell me if I can add "amateur philosopher" to my list of imaginary credentials.

B. Thinking of parody names for reality food tv shows. [Coming Soon]

C. Thinking about how my hair and I feel about each other. [Coming Soon]

D. Thinking about how much I would love a pet.

E. Thinking about writing a song but I can't come up with a good topic. I want to see if I can make a dance song because that would be something completely different.

And now... maybe I can sleep :)

WIF

What if?...

I had a supremely crappy day at work yesterday and I was very upset. I have a, I don't know what to call it, project or task that takes hours and hours to do. I go through thousands of records fixing various errors and there are like 12 different things I have to fix. And I do this every month. And some new circumstances have come into effect that make it even worse since the beginning of 2010. So I spend like 60 hours a year at least, fixing things in this area that shouldn't even be wrong...

And it finally just occurred to me to get fed up.

First, let me tell you real quick about one change that just happened. I am so super busy that I've given my girl (and I mean that in a super-good way like "Hey hey, mah Home-Girl!") all kinds of things to do for me that I wouldn't normally have the audacity to ask, things like "Please enter this", "Please file these", "Please pull these invoices", "Please make these labels". And I feel so guilty because I feel like I'm treating her like my secretary and it's kind of and unspoken part of the corporate culture that "we don't have secretaries, we do our own work." But I'm so busy, I've just given up trying to do every little thing, I just CAN'T. And I give her big stuff too. I used to worry, what if I turns out wrong? I should do it myself! At least I can figure out the perfect notes in the perfect words that she totally understand and train her in it which I can never get to... But it doesn't matter! I can tell if things turn out right or wrong. It is part of my super Virgo power to find or even magically stumble upon pretty much every single error everywhere. And if it's wrong, I just give it back and say, sorry it's wrong right here please fix. And leave it up to her to figure out why she did it wrong. Because now I know that as much as anyone ever tries to help anyone else understand by trying to explain it, maybe even several different ways: Nobody ever understands anything until it comes through their own head.
And the weird thing is, even though I'm giving her some good stuff and actually a whole lot of shit work and feel bad, she actually seems really happy about it. Being busier. So. Huh.

Just a number of realizations (not realizations, they've always been obviously true, but they're just things I didn't apply to myself before for some reason) have come together for me:

...

I'm sorry. I just can't do this now. Maybe later...

'Fuming

The one little thing I lost on my trip was perfume. My last sample of Lolita Lempicka. I got a 12-pack of free samples on eBay that came in for about $8. I hope I left it somewhere in the room and I hope the maid kept it instead of throwing it away.

I really love the fancy stuff like Givenchy and Guerlain that I don't ever actually get. I could become totally strung out on French perfume. I'd be found shaking in the alley behind the boutique, pounding on the door, crying "Just one more ounce millilitre! S'il vous plait, Madame! Je vous en prie!"

You know, it's probably a good thing I can't get any. Just say Non.

Mamma

Hi, we're home! We had a nice time. One thing, we went to a really good Chicago pizza place, Giordano's. Delicious! Just look at this puppy, so good. We had pizza for lunch and dinner all the way home too! : )

Our waiter was really cool. He looked like Vince Vaughn with lighter hair. He made lunch interesting. My youngest pulled a butthead move: "Hey mom, what's that behind you?" and snagged my pop. The waiter was there immediately and said, "Okay, I'm confused. Should I bring a refill of regular Coke or Diet Coke? You're drinking Diet now, right? So, I'm just really confused about what's going on here..." Ooh. Called out my son. The message was so clear, "Respect your Mamma." I enjoyed feeling vindicated. Later when he came back with our pizza, he asked me if I'd like a piece and served me and asked my 15-year old if he'd like a piece, served him and then left. Ouch! My 13-year old just seethed. That's okay. Good lesson for him.

I am having a hard time describing my feelings about my role during the trip. At home, things fall into a groove and it's not quite as obvious why the house exists or why we have food, they just have their own little routines. Out on the road, we are it. All we have is our car, this much fuel, these snacks, these maps. Like a spaceship or a submarine. On the road, I was the captain, the navigator, the treasurer, and security guard. It's not lost on me the importance and satisfaction of providing for and protecting my cubs. I hope they find that as well.

Chic-a-Go-Go

We've seen the Planetarium and the Aquarium. I'm really enjoying being 100% mom. : )

Sail the Accountancy

With It

It's funny. The cliches like "All things must pass", and "When in doubt, do nothing" and "Let go and let God" and "What would Scooby Doo?"... They seem to go in one ear and out the other until one day, they suddenly hit you just right and make sense. And then, you feel like you invented the concept yourself. "This is a totally new, revolutionary thought! I must tell someone!" : )

I started reading a book on Buddhism. Still on the first few pages, but the author gets right into it. He's talking about how a house is not really a house. That if you laid all the materials on the ground, no one would say, "There is a house." He also gives the example of the letter "A". What is the letter "A"? Is it the line leaning right? The line leaning left? The stroke across the middle? And which particular grain of sand is the concrete block? Is there a thing "house" that is laid over these materials like a blanket?

Okay, honestly, I do not get this at all. I can't get my head around it. I can't remember what the realism vs. nominalism debate is about. I can't remember Plato's theories on form vs. ideal. I just know when I read it as a teenager I thought Plato was an idiot. Haha. Ha ha. Ha.

But the thing I did learn, while trying to grasp this is: Thoughts are not things.

Also, "deal with" is not an action verb. Not by itself. Not when used in the sentence "I don't know how I can deal with all this." "Deal with" is meaningful in contexts where it can be replaced by an action verb like "plan" or "pay" or "wash" or "make a phone call".

Thoughts come, thoughts go. I don't have to dwell on them. I have them and acknowledge them and they go away. "Wow, I sure have a lot of work to do today! Yes, you do, let's get started!"; "Yikes, I have bills! Yes you do. Everyone does. That's why you have a job. And I'm lucky, I like it there."; "My Dad is very sick. I know. That's very sad. But he's been a good Dad and you love him. I know. And there's not much I can do about it. Not this minute anyway."; "Fill in the _______. Yes, ________ happens! Okey dokey!"

So thoughts call out for attention, but I don't have to give them center stage or cry or beat myself up or be distracted. I just say yeah or maybe or who knows and they quietly return to their seats. In one lobe and out the other. This is quite a timesaver.

Hakuna Matata! I guess.

Resistance is Feudal

Couldn't sleep last night. But I did decide once and for all that I absolutely would prefer feudalism over anarchy. Better infrastructure. Just sayin'.

Seven Nation Army

Neat dance routine by the contestants of So You Think You Can Dance to the song "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.

Carpe Deus

One of the things I always do is examine my computer to see what the kids have been up to. I make sure they're just playing videogames and doing Facebook, etc. My son's formspring is hilarious. There's one website that's cynical and borderline (failblog) but I allow it because it's really funny and they share the really good ones with me. And they are full-blown teenagers now. Things change.

I found this in the history yesterday: the wikipedia entry for Deus ex Machina. I was so proud.

The way I've seen it in popular culture I thought it meant either artifacts that systems accumulate that cause unintended consequences and give things a mind of their own: ghosts in the machine, gremlins, bugs. Or I thought it was perhaps like the cliche of robots taking over the world. I thought I knew what the saying meant but not really, so I'm glad I read that.

It's helpful to me because I am in a ladies discussion group where we talk about this kind of thing a little bit. Trying to come to terms when neither religious dogma nor skepticism nor nothing at all quite fit the facts as you see them. Deus Ex Machina: God by your own hand.