feeling faint

So the bloodmobile made its rounds today and I gave blood. I actually was quite fine, but probably because they actually followed my instructions: Right arm, blood pressure cuff. No exceptions. I know you feel the vein and are confident you will only have to stick me once, but let me tell you -- if you have to stick me more than once I feel obligated to return the favor.
But anyhow, my arm hurt a little but I'm fine now. I was just typing a little slower for the last hour and a half of work. And that's fine because who wants to work, truely?
ShellBell and Mr. Monkey and I are going to dinner tonight and then to see Autumn* one last time before she and her boyfriend leave for New York. I'm going to try not to think about it because I'll cry and there will be plenty of time for crying when I help them pack the truck on Thursday! I'm bringing my camera so maybe I'll bless you with some pictures :)

The sky is falling.

So I'm sitting in my living room enjoying the sound of the monsoon on the roof (it seems to reverberate in this place) beginning a new book when I start hearing this noise. It sounds mildly like what's going on outside, but is most definitely inside. Tap tap tap -- it's like wet clothes dripping on cement. And then I see it. A leak in my roof. Dripping on my reading chair. Evidently I should have something slightly more appropriate for the weather in my living room.

The Interview

My friend VegasGustan (I'm being lazy but his links are the ones over there on the right called "Home But Far From It" and "Song Repository") interviewed me, and here are my answers to his brilliant questions:
1. If you could rewrite the ending to one book how would you change it?
I would end Chuck Palahnuik's Invisible Monsters after the person who shot the model in the mouth confesses to the shooting. Because after that is just mindless backstory on why it was done, and who really cares? The reasoning takes away from the shock the reader would have felt. What I would have thought about the reasoning would have been far more complex and interesting than the "true reasons." Writers are so scared of leaving questions in the readers' minds, when a responsible reader would fill those answers in with his/her own answers rather than waiting for it to be spelled out for them. And I don't think that writers should leave things open that you can't make your own hypotheses without stretching too much, because that's not responsible either. A writer should lead you to the water and expect you to drink, not force you. Wow, and now we're all asses. :) And I'll step down from my soapbox. (For all the Palahnuik fans out there, I do really love his writing and his storylines. Invisible Monsters was the only one so far that I've read and been irritated by the ending.)
Oh, another one I'd change is anything by James Paterson. But then I'd change the end by burning a hole through it. But you already knew that, didn't you? :)
2. Do you hold any regrets so far that you would care to share with the class?
I really try not to regret things. I do things I should regret, but I've always been big on not regretting, because really what purpose does it serve? I think if there's something that does come to mind it's that I regret stealing from my mother when I was a teenager. I think it's something all teenagers did, but I've really tried to make up for it as an adult by helping her out with money whenever possible. She doesn't often take it, but I still try to force it on her. I didn't realize how little she really had back then.
3. If you could have taken anything to show-and-tell back in the day what would have it been?
I'd like to carry around the little boy I punched in kindergarten while the lights were out and we were getting ready to watch a movie. He was always teasing me and I could never get him back, so one day right before a movie I went up behind him and slugged him in the back. That way I could show-and-tell I really can stick up for myself!
4. You wake up in a future where you are now considered a complete savage and cavewoman-like, how do you try to fit in?
I go to work, because you're always required to be somewhat of a savage. If I'm completely a savage maybe I'll be even better. My problem with my job is that I think I have too much empathy. Maybe this kind of change would do me good.
5. (James Lipton Moment) What turns you off?
People who pretend they're more intellegent than they are, or feign intellect by enunciating every word so it sounds deliberate and therefore more stable and important than everyone else's speaking. And when people talk over you. And bad breath, that really turns me off.

The Rules

1. Leave me a comment saying 'interview me please'
2. I will respond by asking you five questions on your blog (not the same questions you see here)
3. Update your blog/site with the answers to the questions
4. Include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them five questions

spendin' moolah.

I finally made my reservations on Orbitz for Punta Gorda in a week and a half, and so of course there's a tropical depression south of here. They say it's going toward the Bahamas, so maybe we'll be safe. I don't want to waste my money. And I want to have fun, of course! It's the Survivor geocacher's event for the anniversary of Hurricane Charley. Let's go crazy!
Okay, I'm tired and am slightly nuts.
And I forgot today was Tuesday.
I go now.

Doing Minimal Black for a bit.

I haven't been posting because I've been so mad at the template for doing that damn scrolly thing. I know I said it wouldn't bother me. So I lied. I've tweaked everything I know how to tweak, and I wrote an email to the template maker but she'he hadn't gotten back to me yet and I was still annoyed by it. I tried reloading the same template but I came up with the same problems. So I switched back to the most bearable of the blogger templates, and I'm now on the hunt for a bigger better template. Something with books, please.
It's been a whole half a month since my last post! I've been keeping up with most of your posts, even though I couldn't bear to post myself, so I find myself fairly caught up.
It's been raining since I went to bed last night. I woke up having a terrible dream and went back to finish it -- it makes me groggier to wake up to a half-finished bad dream than to finish it out. In the dream I was at some minor celebrity's house and some other people were there too and for some reason I passed out and when I came to I realized that someone had set fire under my bed, which I put out with my hand -- ouch! Then I realized the people that had been at the celeb's house were raiding her warehouse, so I was trying to find out who of my friends were involved with this, and I got caught at the warehouse by someone who didn't know me, but she just told me to leave and then I was hiding at this woman's house and a car (of the people from the warehouse) came by and hit her little baby. And the baby died while I was trying to catch the people who did it.
So really I'd say that so much has happened, but really not much has happened since I took a sabbatical. Christen, Other April and I went to Islands of Adventure on Saturday, which was a lot of fun. I hadn't been there in many years, Christen had never been there, and OA is always up for a theme park!
We also ate at Jungle Jim's so C and I could have the Peanutbutter Bet hamburger (1/2 lb hamburger, peanut butter, mayo (which of course I leave off) cheese, bacon, lettuce tomato and pickle).
It's the best burger anywhere, I do declare. We go there everytime we go to Orlando, which lately isn't much, but for a span of 7 months or so we went every other weekend.
OA and I slept all the way home, and I went to bed at 9:30 and woke up at 9:30, and went to a bridal show with ShellBell again. This one didn't tire me out as much as the last one, and we went shopping afterward since it was the last day of the tax-free thing. To tell you the truth, we just went shopping to go shopping. It just so happened that it was still during the tax-free thing.
I'm now falling asleep again. Suz and I have decided to start carpooling (a logical idea, although we've been working there for going on 6 months and haven't really given it a thought until I needed a ride for two days last week. Now we're going to try. Let's hope I don't fall asleep in the car today (no, I'm not driving).
So sorry this post hasn't been particularly interesting or witty -- it's hard for me to get back into the swing of things once I've been gone for so long. It'll get better, I promise people!

I think therefore ...

I think that Christen's Time O' Ze Month coincides with mine, because every month we bicker the whole time. And I swear it's not just me starting the fights. I'm generally content just to sit on the couch and moan all night, but he has to start arguments when he asks where the tops to the tupperware are and I instruct him to the cabinet I told him they would be in two weeks ago when we brought them from the apartment he starts getting all pissy. I was watching my tone so it didn't seem like I thought he was an idiot (he acuses me of talking that way sometimes) and still he goes, "Now see, I get upset when you say things like that." Like what, damn it? With the entire rest of the world it's how you say something and not really what you say. I try to be all friggin' sweet and tell him where they were and now it's what I say and now how I say things. But you know, if I would have said, all exacerbated, "There in here," he would have been equally mad. (For the record, my exact words were, all sweet and nice, "I told you when we brought them that I would put the tops over here." End of story.)

And then this morning I couldn't get up because I couldn't sleep last night and he got mad and started stomping around. Gee wiz, man. I tossed and turned for four hours, read some, and finally fell asleep only to keep waking up sweating and he's mad because I want to get up at 6:45 instead of 6:37? I'm freaking tired!

Anyhow, enough of the bitchfest. I'm having a party tomorrow (yay!) and hopefully no cops will be called. I told my neighbors about it and if we were too loud to come over and tell us to shut up.

Oh yeah, and ouch.

I wrote yesterday's post and forgot to mention the ouch, which hardly seems worth mentioning now. I seem to have cut my hand right where it meets my left wrist. I don't know how I did it, and it's just a little cut so it wouldn't really matter except that I don't type correctly and rest my wrists on the panel of the laptop under the keyboard when I type. I thought yesterday it would be a bigger problem, as I am forced to type as fast as possible as people talk to me on the phone, but it seems I rest my forearms there on the edge of the desk so it doesn't bother the cut. The reason I don't type correctly is when I took typing class in high school I thought it would amuse me to see what I could get away with in not typing the way the instructor taught us (Sorry, Ms. Nail). So whenever she wasn't looking I would sneak peeks at my keyboard and rest my wrists. And now I like to watch myself type even though I know where all the keys are and don't have to look, and I rest my forsaken wrists. Oh well, such is life.

I don't have a lot else to say and I'm on a bit of a time crunch because I've not yet started getting ready for work, but I will say this:

Yay for hockey being back this season!

That is all.

Ouch.

I'm sitting here trying to wake up before I go to work -- it was such a hassle to get up. And I was having a dream about someone I intensely dislike that for some reason I started working for again and he was hitting on me and I seemed to like it. Icky. So you'd think I would have wanted to wake up, but I never heard the alarm and Christen exausted all resources in waking me up. I think he was mad. Thankfully I don't seem to say anything about my dreams while I'm still in that half-state, or I might be in trouble sometimes. Not that I can control them or anything, but still. And that dream made me feel icky. However it was funny that I was going through bags of paperclips to make sure they all about the same amount because there was a sidewalk sale of sorts. Hehehe.

I took Christen's birthday off this week (Monday) and we had a nice relaxing day together. I got all of his shopping done over the weekend while dodging rainbands from the hurricane so we were able to focus on doing what shopping he had left, like buying the grill his parents gave him money for for his birthday. And I bought the Sims University pack, so now I've reduced myself to not doing anything constructive for the past couple evenings. That's okay though, because he bought Age of Mythology or something like that and is playing it on the other computer. We have 4 computers -- 2 desktops and 2 laptops, and 1 desktop doesn't work and 1 laptop has a broken spine (parapalegic?) so we're usually reduced to the other two computers. I know, hard luck, right?

Sunday I went with my best friend to a bridal show and to Christen's cousin's boutique so ShellBell could try on dresses. It was a lot of fun, and she and I haven't spent much time together in awhile. I'm her maid of honor, so I need to get one of those books to find out what that entails. I know I'm supposed to host a bridal shower and do the bachelorette party, but what else? I think I'm going to help her with a lot of the planning, which sounds fun to me! :)

I read two books last week -- The 6th Lamintation, which was really very good. A little hard to follow at times, but very well written. The second was Me Talk Pretty One Day, which was pretty good. I didn't find it as laugh-out-loud as some people seem to find Sedaris, but it was pretty good. Amusing at the very least.

Oh yeah, work? What's that? I guess I should go. Wish me luck on driving with a cloudy head!

Garnish my hurricane with an orange and a cherry.

Hurricane Dennis is looking interesting, but thankfully the brunt of it will miss us. I was driving earlier today to try to finish (oh who am I kidding, trying to start) my shopping for Christen's birthday. It wasn't bad until I headed back from Tampa and one of those bands hit the area and I couldn't see the interstate. I knew there was a giant red truck somewhere in front of me, but I couldn't for the life of me see it. A half hour later driving 20-30 MPH all the way home I picked up Other April and brought her over. We all went out for drinks last night and we ended up dropping her at home even though her car was at my place because she wouldn't have been safe driving home. Now I'm hanging out at home doing nothing and contemplating doing my grocery shopping while the weather is calm. Who's with me?

We live in a crazy world.

I'm sorry for London. It's bad no matter where it happens.

What'dya know?

I don't know anything. Except that I always wake up feeling like I haven't gotten enough sleep, but I'm not smart enough to go to bed earlier. I'm thinking about visiting Autumn today, whom I haven't seen since we went to see her in the hospital. I worry about her every day though. I was supposed to go with Brad but a friend of his is having problems of some sort so he doesn't know if he's gonna make it. I think I'll go on my own. I bought her a calla lilly candle, because that's her favorite flower and they die so quickly. I think this might last longer.

Maybe when I get home I'll go to bed.

Commemoration

So while I'm waiting for Christen's arrival home, I figure I can commemorate my birthday with an honest to god post instead of the mini blurbs I've been gracing you with. At least while my downloads finish :)

First things first, though: Jamie, my blog still isn't acting right but I've figured out that it's only with Firefox that I have difficulties; if I open in Explorer there's no problem. For the time being I've decided not to worry about it and just let people scroll if they use Firefox -- hell, I use Firefox and I scroll. But if someone wants to troubleshoot it that won't bother me either. Eventually I'll look into it. I don't think I'll put the old pics up just because I don't want to go through the trouble of looking them up again, but I'll continue putting new ones up now that I know that wasn't the cause.

My birthday has been pretty good so far; I think this is the first time I have worked on my birthday in I don't know how long, but it wasn't too bad. The girls took me out to lunch and gave me a chocolate cake and a big balloon and the waiter even gave me a pair of earrings for my birthday! He said that some woman had tipped him with the earrings and he really didn't know what to do with them since he wouldn't wear woman's earrings anyhow, so he gave them to me for a birthday present! They're kinda cute; I'm not sure they're earrings that I would normally wear but they might be cute on, I don't know.
Christen gave me my present yesterday; I knew what it was anyhow because I didn't really give him any inkling that I wanted anything else, but I'm happy that he got it for me:

I got a precious little green iPod mini. Last night I spent downloading music for it, so I now have a wonderful 133 songs on it and counting! Christen's parents gave me a couple gift cards and a pretty necklace and my dad stuck a card under my back door for me -- I love that I live close enough for him to do that! I'm going to my mom's house tomorrow or Thursday and out with his parents on Saturday. Tonight Christen is taking me out to dinner, though he won't tell me where.

My wonderful friend and ex-roomie Brad celebrates his 21st birthday today as well, so I called him this afternoon after lunch to wish him a happy birthday and to hear about his exploits with tequila last night. We're going out drinking on Friday, woohoo! And Saturday afternoon I'm treating him to a tour of the Yuengling factory in Tampa.

So it'll be a week of birthday shenanigans! Wish me luck; hope I survive the hoopla!

Go April,

It's your birthday ... :)

bless the genius of crazy people

I just heard how this angry claimant sent a Progressive claims adjuster a big bouquet of flowers, hung out outside the building and when the adjuster came out with the bouquet he shot her. So you know, if a random person sends you flowers don't take them home. If you pissed them off, they might be watching for you.

the thin red line.

I burnt my arm. I maintain that it's Christen's fault; I had to iron his shirt this morning. It's not that he's inept at such things, but he was whining more than normal on the state of the wrinkles -- I thought it might be easier to simply do it for him once he had tried and failed. I usually leave him to his own devices. Alas, my poor burned arm (although of course it's really not that bad, just an itchy red line).
They've taken away overtime at work now. I'm restricted to strict 8-5 hours. Looks like I'll be getting some sleep now! But I really enjoyed that extra umph on my paycheck twice a month, and it's so much easier to get work done when there's no one here. I've decided if they are taking it away then I'm going to start taking my breaks too, so now I'm going to start blogging on my breaks. So congrats! You'll hear from me more! I can't technically "blog" from work, but I can email myself what I want to say and post it at night, which works. It makes me happy. And we want April happy.
Last night I went to a karaoke bar for a girl from work's birthday. It was much fun, I'll tell you. I drug Christen too, (not to say I drugged him but I made him come with) and I think he had fun too although he didn't know very many people. It's okay; I didn't know many people either. There were many terrible singers and a few good ones (that includes the ones in our group) but we stayed late and it was entirely too difficult to get up this morning because of it. The "other April" sang Angel by Sarah McLaughlin, and she was great. I made her sing, and I think I'll be making her sing a lot more now. Hehehehe.
Countdown to my birthday -- 7 days!

in space

It seems so many are getting in car accidents. First it was Mason Dixon --

And now a very good friend from work. The thing is there were about 10 of us on the patio drinking when our friend got in the accident crossing the street from work to the bar. I guess it's a good thing he didn't get in the accident leaving the bar instead. He's alright, but let me tell you: Tiberon's do not hold up against Expeditions. I didn't take a picture but a friend did and I'll post it if I get ahold of it.

back to the land of the living ...

I'm not quite finished moving but I've decided I've had it. Everything left, well, I haven't missed it in the last week, now have I? Maybe I won't notice if I just trash it all. I do still need to put in my change of address because I'm not getting my bills, and though I don't mind this I'm sure Capital One does.

And I've missed all of you terribly so I've decided to come back to ze blawgin' communidy.

I lied though; I can't throw anything away so I'm sure I won't trash it all. I just have to get the mometum to go back and grab everything. For this weekend I'm taking it easy. We bought a new couch from Kanes to be picked up tomorrow, and my family is coming over tonight to see the new place and to hang out (and the little sister will be spending the night). I plan on a nice dinner at the diner around the corner and some local shopping and geocaching. Woohoo, sounds like fun! Christen has been taking care of his dad for the past few days so I've been home organizing all my books and dvds and kitchen stuff -- it's been lonely but great fun; we all know how much I love to organize. I hate to pack and I detest moving, but I revel in the reorganizing. I have a library now! Life is good.

I swear I'm alive ...

I'm just moving between monsoons ...

If I don't drown moving the couch I'll stop by soon!

gettin' down with the sickness ...

So being sick has allotted me the time that I otherwise would not have to watch movies. I'd read, but for two reasons: one, my head, it was a-poundin' the entire 5 days of illness; and two, I packed all of my books last week and dragged them over to the new house. It's a very dreary house indeed, one with no books. But there's always Blockbuster and HBO on Demand! So here's what I've watched Friday Sunday and Monday:

Spanglish
The Incredibles
In Good Company
The Counterfeit Contessa
Singles
The Prince and Me
Easy
Bowling for Columbine
Cinderella Story
Groundhog Day
3 episodes of Family Business

... and I'm sure a number of others. It's been fun! Some of those would have ended up on MooCow's "I watch bad movies so you don't have to" list, but I found most of them thoroughly enjoyable. If it helps, I would have watched a Mary Kate & Ashley movie if I would have caught it on television. And I DVR'd (the Brighthouse equiv. of TIVO) The Prince and Me because Christen refused to watch it with me. And tomorrow I shall return to the land of the living -- well, almost. New Jersey Insurance, here I come!

and the rain came tumblin' down.

I feel like Chicken Little with all this rain. It started on Tuesday with the rain when it took me two hours -- two hours to get to work. Then ... I got sick. It started out like a little sore throat -- nothin' I couldn't handle. Then my ears filled up -- everytime I swallow my throat hurts and my ears pop. Then my sinuses filled up.

By Friday this is what I felt like. I worked 6:30-10:30 am and had to get out of there -- I felt like shit. This weekend hasn't been any better. We tried to do some moving yesterday and got about 10 boxes across the Bay before it started pouring again. Today I've been reduced to lounging on the couch watching crapping On Demand movies. Anyone want to help me move?