Playing with Myself

Thanks to all for birthday wishes. I don't feel a day over 31. Tsk.

My doctor has been keeping me on a short leash with the trazadone, which is the lovely little bit of pharmaceutical that gets me to sleep these days. I was obviously in mom's "Oh I feel much better so I don't needs meds" mode on Friday, because I'd been sleeping well, and wasn't terribly stressed by the thought of going off the trazadone. The doctor and I were going to discuss this and the rest of my meds on Friday.

Unfortunately, I was 20 minutes late for my appointment. So they cancelled, and rescheduled for a day that I now realize won't work either because of work stuff.

I was mortified. I hate being late for appointments. Hate it to distraction. And to have to deal with the obnoxious nurse making me feel worse on top of that... *sigh* And of course I was out of trazadone. So while I was mentally berating myself for being late and fighting back tears (hello, not dealing well with stress right now), I ask nurse to ask doctor to call in a refill for the trazadone. She asks how I'm doing on it, and I respond "okay". Of course, if you'd asked me earlier in the week (or day, for that matter), I would have been able to say objectively that it was doing its job. I was sleeping, nightmare count was down, yadda yadda. It won't fix the other issues, it just lets me get to a frame of mind where I can deal with them. But I was upset, so the "okay" apparently came out as less than okay, and that's what the nurse told doc.

I get home on Friday evening and find a message from the nurse (even though I told her to call me at work) saying that "since the trazadone isn't working for you, the doctor has decided not to refill the scrip."

No biggie, I think. I can do without it until I see her in 10 days.

I did not sleep this weekend. I did not sleep well. I napped during the day, in the sense that if I sat down on the bed for more than ten minutes I was asleep. But that never lasted very long. I was up at 3 am on both Saturday and Sunday, and absolutely could not get back to sleep. My skin hurt, I was so miserable. Or perhaps I have the cause and effect misplaced there.

Regardless, I want my fucking refill and want it now.

When did stupidity become synonymous with moral values? I don't understand how anyone can mistake Bush's qualities with those of moral virtue.

International monitors and the election:

A selection of voters and election officials who were questioned as they left the Miami polling station said they mainly found the monitors reassuring.

"The United States has long been a model for the world," said Richard Williams, a poll watcher officially designated by the Democratic party. "If we allow international observers, we will continue to have a leading role."

Not everyone agrees. Jeff Miller, a Republican congressman from Florida, considers the monitors an insult and has publicly urged them to leave. "Get on the next plane out of the United States to go monitor an election somewhere else, like Afghanistan," he said.

Mr G noted that the Democrats will have to rethink their efforts to target young voters.

India's rediff.com on conceeding:

The only reason Bush has not made his victory speech today, [Chief of Staff Andrew] Card indicated, was because he wanted to give his opponent the courtesy of 'time to reflect on the outcome of this election'.

By projecting the outcome as a fait accompli, Card was playing to a tried and tested GOP playbook. In 2000, when Florida hung in the balance, the Republicans proclaimed victory, and then pointed to every objection, every challenge, as an attempt to subvert the verdict. Here again, Card is obviously playing the same game – he has now announced victory, he has said Bush hasn't officially claimed victory only out of courtesy.

The obvious, if unstated, subtext, is that it is now up to his opponent to match that courtesy, and to accept his defeat and acknowledge Bush the winner. Any delay in doing so will, going by precedent, be pointed to as discourtesy on the part of Kerry.

I need a transcript of Stephen Colbert's closing speech last night on The Daily Show. Give me a car fueled by rage-o-hol, please.

Fuck it all, I wanted every vote counted. Every one. Not because I think it would tip the scale in Kerry's favor, but because every vote should count. An election should be about the final numbers, not how it's spun. I would rather wait and know the numbers than have CBS tell me who won.

I am, quite obviously, paying for something. Between the owies and the family mishaps and the election and the doctor and the car... oi.

I went out to the parking garage last night and discovered that while I was at work, someone hit the driver's side of my car. Not badly, mind you. But there's a fairly annoying gash down three panels, and they hit the last panel right before the bumper hard enough that the metal has buckled.

Mr G and I did screams of frustration last night. It went something like this:

Car!
Bush!
Car!
Bush!
Ack!
Argh!

On the plus side, I have 3,000 words done for NaNoWriMo.

The Incredibles was fantastic. And the music was beyond fantastic. Beautiful homage.

I signed up for NaNoWriMo, knowing full well that I'm going to be gone for a week and incapable of meeting my self-imposed goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month without taking several unpaid days from work, which I'm not going to do. Nonetheless, I am enjoying the experience. I can't remember the last time I worked on original fiction, and the story is rolling along nicely. Even if the end result is crap, I hope I can hang on to how I'm feeling about the process right now.

Having said that... As usual the ups of the day have, several hours later, left me wallowing in a pit of despair. Because I know without a doubt that I am a thoroughly unlikeable person, an utterly unoriginal writer, and will never be happy ever. Go me!

I think a self-lobotomy might help. Watch out for drool.

Am home safely from Walt Disney World. I was sick every single day. And the last two days were very, very strange. The taxi that was supposed to take us to the airport was hideously late, the lines were ridiculously long (Sunday before Thanksgiving, doh!), and I didn't get a single postcard mailed from Florida. I did get them all written in Florida, so I'm going to mail them from Indiana and you'll just have to live with it beetches.

So glad to be home. Alas, it's going to be hell at work tomorrow so I have no idea when/if I'm going to get to LJ skip=whatever and the email. Hugs to all.

::hack hack::
::sneeze::

Disney

Stitch toilet-papered Cinderella's castle on a day we weren't at the Magic Kingdom. I saw it on the news and thought it must be a fake backdrop. Heh.

The Stitch ride was a big disappointment, imo. I never saw Alien Encounter, so I cannot speak to the impression given by others that it was the same thing recycled with different characters.

Ann's Christmas present is a talking Violet Incredible doll. Shhhh, don't tell her.

The Star Wars store wasn't nearly as much fun without Danakate. The new Luke Skywalker pin is really badly made, and they should be ashamed to have produced it.

Due to various mix-ups and poor planning, I did not get back to Downtown Disney to buy several things that I had planned. Will have to think of alternate Christmas presents, yar.

Tiffany Car Service last year was far superior to any of the transportation we took this year.

Shades of Green, the military resort, was super-duper even though it had limited transportation to and fro. Fabulous rooms. If you've done any military time, you can book there.

There's a Chinese restaurant next to the Quality Inn Maingate West. Don't eat there. There's a Chinese restaurant across the highway from Quality Inn Maingate West. Eat there. It's fabulous.

Epcot's Illuminations was a lot cooler than I remembered.

Never, ever do Epcot on the last day of your trip. Really bad idea. Unfortunately, the day we were originally planning to go to Epcot, I was so sick that I stayed at the hotel and slept most of the day.

Going to the Brown Derby with two burgers and fries people is a waste of time and money.

The Tower of Terror at MGM Studios is fanfuckingtastic.

Home

We came home to a note from the dogsitter that the washing machine was broken. The washing machine was actually fine. The furnace, however, was not. I hope she had heat during the week we were gone.

A Christmas present from a friend was delivered while we were gone. I opened it, because I thought it was a late birthday present. It's not even Thanksgiving! Argh! When am I going to shop? Argh!

Don't make me laugh. I cough when I laugh. Dammit, I said stop making me laugh!

When I left for vacation, I had six accounts assigned to me. This morning, I find that I have 34. And I have been designated as the primary contact for another CSR who is going to be out on maternity leave in December. I am so screwed.

So... I went off Prozac about 4 weeks ago.

It shows.

Adding more of Wellbutrin this week may help. In the meantime, I need to find a way to deal with emotional crisis that doesn't involve

a) deleting things
b) breaking things
c) throwing things away

I honestly never understood why my mother doesn't have "things". She really doesn't. She goes from house to house, husband to boyfriend, whatever, and doesn't take much with her. Fine, I get it now.

The best thing about last week wasn't the days off, or the wonderful company. Honestly, the best thing about last week was that very few clients called into the office. Heh.

We had a lovely time with the sister-in-law and her family (three kids below the age of seven, oi!). Our traditional Thanksgiving dinner at Ryan's was a pleasant novelty for them. Our Ryan's normally has Thanksgiving or autumn-themed pictures colored by local grade schoolers up on the walls. They didn't this year. I missed them.

We did, of course, have pie at home. Pumpkin (yum) and cookies 'n cream for those so inclined.

I had no intention of joining the fray shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, until I discovered that my sister-in-law who doesn't like to shop was actually looking forward to it this year. Not enough to get up at 6 am, however. We did make it to Michael's in time to use one of their 40% off a single item coupons. We'll see if the nifty mat cutter that I bought is actually nifty.

I went back to cleaning kennels at Pet Refuge on Saturday morning, for the first time since I busted my elbow. I'm always reluctant to go, but when I go I'm always glad I did. We are so overloaded with dogs at the shelter, though, that it's depressing. And yet it's not, because at least those dogs aren't on the street. I guess all my feelings about Pet Refuge now are thankfulness mixed with sadness. Rusty, our current foster, will probably get adopted this week too, so that doesn't help the mood.

Saturday and Sunday were mostly about house cleaning and sorting and laundry and a mental meltdown in which I did a few very stupid things.

Last night's Desperate Housewives rocked. I wish I had taped it.

Belatedly, but done.

Step One

-- Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered ...whatever you're comfortable with) to your journal. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

-- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

-- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your journal so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two

-- Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

-- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use -- or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free -- do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf -- to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not -- it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just... wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

My Wishlist, in no particular order:

-- Plain Cadbury dairy milk bars from the UK. The version that Hershey produces in the US just isn't as good.

-- A donation to Pet Refuge. That first Christmas dog? I fostered him until he got adopted.

-- Postcards. I love them. You don't even have to say anything on them. Someday I'm going to scan all my postcards into the computer. Send to: Kelly Jones, 17221 Hagey Street, South Bend IN 46635

-- A poster version of this picture. I had a wall-size version, many moons ago, but it has been lost in one of the moves.

-- The Shadow: Comics, books, and good CD recordings of the radio programs. I wish Universal would put out a letterboxed DVD version of the cheesy movie remake from a few years ago. I suppose I ought to buy the full-screen version before it goes out of print.

-- Cross stitch patterns for medieval stained glass.

-- Lego minifigures (aka the little Lego people). I love them all. I mix and match. I'm trying to customize some, and plenty of sacrificial victims volunteers are necessary.

-- Hardcover copies of The Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid and any Nero Wolfe mystery by Rex Stout except The Doorbell Rang, which was put out in a bookclub edition in 1965 and so is available in many, many places.

Within 5 minutes, Notre Dame fired their football coach and Tom Ridge resigned from Homeland Security.

The surprise isn't that ND fired Willingham, btw. It's that they did so before the bowl game that they decided on Sunday to participate in. Huh.

I'd like to send Tom Ridge a roll of duct tape as a parting gift. Thanks for playing.