Here’s my weird dream from last night: me and Greg are on vacation, in like a minivan or RV or something, with Skeeter, Chalupa, the dog we’re hoping to adopt*, and a wee tiny dog. Well, we *think* it’s a wee tiny dog, and it’s in a huge crate with the other dog. And then it starts biting our dog, and our dog is crying, so I grab the wee tiny thing, and realize it’s not a dog at all but some sort of rodent or weasel or some shit, and I’m like, “Oh hell no!” We’re also driving around, looking for a place we can let all the animals out to play. So I open the van door to toss out the rodenty thing so it can run away, and I’m thinking we can get out and stretch our legs here – except when I open the door, we’re in about a foot, foot and a half maybe, of standing water that is FULL OF FUCKING LAMPREYS! Ewww! Only I threw out the rodent before I noticed the water or the lampreys, and the lampreys basically devour the rodent in about two seconds. So I shut the door with a quickness and am like, “Not fucking here! Drive on!” The end.
*The dog we want is still available at the rescue. Please, oh please, let her still be available in March, she is such a perfect fit for us and the cats. Cross your fingers for us, okay? (I mean, yes, it would be best for *her* to get adopted sooner rather than later, but we really want her. Plus, she’s like the best dog the rescue has right now, and hasn’t gotten adopted yet, and it’s been like two months? three months? I don’t know what crack rock bitches are smoking that they’re not snapping this dog right up, but it is fine with me if they keep smoking it until March, so we can adopt her. And I can kronsch her ears.)
PS – THIS is a fucking lamprey, if you don’t know. Scroll on down to that picture of the mouth of a river lamprey. Yeah. That is the stuff of fucking nightmares.
PPS – I found out a while ago that when Greg was younger he used to catch leeches from a creek with a net. I found out today that not only did he catch them and release them – but that in between the catching and the releasing, he FUCKING PLAYED WITH THEM. IN HIS HANDS. What. the. fuck. *Playing* with leeches. Leeches are fucking gross!
In a fit of ridiculousness, I started calling my desktop computer “my poo-poo.” I think it was some sort of “play” on the “pu” in “computer.” Or just me being utterly, utterly ridiculous. (I don’t normally admit to this, but there may or may not be rather alot of silly talk and made-up words used in my home. Ahem. Not by anyone in particular, of course.) Anyway, that’s turned out to be rather apt, because my “poo-poo” has been pretty fucked up lately. Greg has spent alot of time trying to fix it, and then tonight he and I spent more time trying different things to fix it (there was a problem with user32.dll – I don’t even know how that happened, nor really what “user32.dll” even is), and it looks like it’s finally fixed. Well…there was a note about a problem with Outlook, but I never fucking use Outlook, so I’m just ignoring that and hoping it’s okay. There was also a little note about inetcomm.dll, but it started up fine, and seems to be okay, so we’ll see. Previously, it did such awesome things as hide all the icons on my desktop (so my desktop was empty) at the same time it refused to let me get to my programs through my Start menu (Greg suggested using Task Manager to run programs, but I couldn’t get that shit to behave, whether it was fucked up or I’m just stupid, we’ll never know now that it’s behaving properly), then Windows Explorer kept fucking up and crashing shit, and then at one point tonight the computer just kept obsessively restarting itself. Like, right in the middle of booting up, it would restart itself. Then get halfway booted, then restart. Lather, rinse, repeat. But now I’m blogging to you from my computer, so…yeah.
What have I been up to. Shit. Well, Friday, we went to the Felix Obelix debut show/cd release/time capsule thingy. We saw (and sat with) Jeremy and Kimmy, and also saw (but did not sit with, which might be a good move since apparently Amanda is sick with maybe a gross virus I do not want) Jj and Amanda. And we also saw Wendy and Jay and Dylan and some other peeps I’m forgetting, sorry. Saturday night, we watched The Highlander. I totally forgot how bad that movie is in the second half. It’s pretty goddamn awful, actually, especially compared to how sweet the first half is. (And now I’m really wanting to listen to Queen, so good thing my computer’s fixed, except I have to install iTunes. Shit. Because the last release of iTunes crashed my shit bad and repeatedly before my poo-poo started acting up, so I was running an earlier release. Hmm. Do I try the latest version of iTunes now or not? After all the bullshit we went through tonight. Hmm. Maybe I’ll just wait a couple days, and enjoy a working poo-poo again before I do something that might fuck it back up.) And yesterday we met up with Louise, Scott, Brandi, and Jonny at IP3 for scrumptious, scrumptious pizza and beer (for them; Sprite for me – you know how I do), and then afterwards we played two games of Apples to Apples, and one game of Fluxx. And it was awesome. (Oh, and I subjected everybody to some 1930s music in the background, and they seemed to not totally hate it. Greg was like, “Actually, I’m drunk and enjoying this right now.” Weird. But excellent for me.) It turns out I met Louise, Brandi, and Jonny ages and ages ago (the year before Greg and I moved in together, actually; I’m not doing the math right now), through another grrl I’ve fallen out of touch with. But they are awesome, so I’m excited to get to hang out with them again. (Actually, I didn’t really know Louise that well back then – we only met once. But I remembered Brandi and Jonny because, to tell the truth, I ended up liking them better than the grrl I met them through. Isn’t that kind of shitty? “Hey, I know you’re supposed to be my close friend, and I’ve only met these two people a couple times, but they are way more awesome than you, so how’s about I hang out with them instead? Thanks for introducing me! Peace.” I didn’t really do that. But I wanted to. Kind of. Going straight to hell. Anyway.) Today was kind of shitty because I had trouble sleeping last night (and some INSANE dreams), and woke up in a totally fucking foul mood. Seriously, bitchtastic. I’ve chilled out now, though, which is good. I don’t really like being heinous to people just because I’m tired and grumpy. Actually, not really a fan of being heinous to people in general. And especially not Greg, who probably gets the brunt of it since we’re together so much of the day. Oof. Anyway, and then tonight Greg made spaghetti carbonara and OH MY FUCKING GOD! It is incredible. Why haven’t I had it before, I don’t know.
Skeeter and Chalupa have been pretty good, except I’m pretty sure Chalupa is responsible for the hole I just found in my Elfine socks:
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The sock is made with superwash wool yarn, and Chalupa is a wool-sucker. But previously, she’s only sucked on wool in the skein, so I’ve been careful not to leave balls/hanks/skeins of wool yarns laying out. She’s never touched knitted objects. And yet, there is a hole in my Elfine socks that popped up overnight, seemingly from nowhere (I didn’t notice any breaking strands or anything). I still have some of the yarn leftover (which is good, since it’s one of a kind, and I’m pretty sure the person who dyed it is no longer selling hand-dyed yarn), but I’ve never darned socks before, and darning a lace pattern…I don’t even know how I’d begin to do that shit. So I’ve put the socks safely out of Chacha’s way for now, and I’m thinking about what to do. I love those fucking socks, so I’ll probably try darning eventually.
In the meantime, I used an Interweave pattern to make a hairtie out of some of that yarn. (I still have plenty left over for darning, though – more than enough. No worries there.) I used the Molly’s Headband pattern from Interweave Knits Summer 2006, and I like it quite a bit. Here it is blocking: (I know, right – I *actually* blocked it! Although I think that’ll undo when I wash it, since it’s washable wool? Maybe? Maybe not? Not a blocking queen over here, people, although I did manage to get the lace to open up.)
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And now I’m going to go read for a little bit, before going to bed at a reasonable time tonight, so I can get some sleep and not be such an asshole tomorrow morning.
Woot.
I have had a bee in my bonnet for a while now about Dutch coronets. And tonight I finally did one, all by my little self. There’s definitely a point in the back where it looks a little like I might have switched direction or something, and then there’s a spot on the right side where, looking at the picture, I can tell exactly where I started it, because the hair is more tightly braided after that point. But whatever, I love it. And now that I know I can do it, it’ll only get better with practice. I just hope this shit stays in while I sleep on it, because I won’t have the patience to redo it in the morning. Or, if it comes out a little bit, I hope it does so in a cute way, and only slightly. I’m tired of rocking buns, but if it more or less all comes out and looks assy, I’ll have to wear buns again tomorrow.
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In fact, the first time I ever saw a Dutch coronet was on a grrl at Science & Math, named Heather. I’m almost certain it’s the same Heather that facebook is trying to convince me to add as a friend, because apparently we have mutual friends (I’ve got some good guesses as to who those are exactly). But since I don’t think I ever actually talked to her at S&M (her being a class above me, and way cooler than me in my own estimation, and me being shy and chickenshit, never talked to her), I’d feel weird about adding her on facebook. “Hi, we don’t really know each other, except that I thought you were cool in highschool, loved your hairstyle, and we have some mutual friends now.” I’d just feel weird. But I love this ‘do. Holy shit.
P.s. I sooooo need to touch up the purple in my hair, but I’m lazy, and I kind of like the way it’s washed out, actually. There are still some purple bits, barely, and most of it looks red or brown or somewhere in between (weird, considering it was bleached before it was dyed purple, and all the red came out, so it’s weird that the red came back when the purple washed out), but there’s quite a bit of this…watery blue with occasional green tinges. It’s kind of neat, and that’s why I’ve been putting off the retouching. That and I don’t have gloves and don’t want purple hands. And I’m not really looking forward to cleaning up the tub. And I’m not sure I’ve got quite enough dye leftover. But mainly I just like how it looks now, even though it’s not in-your-face purple anymore.
Today was AWESOME! and not-so-awesome.
AWESOME! because of the inauguration. Hell yes. I don’t normally go in for stuff like patriotism or school spirit or anything like that, really, so past inaugurations I was either depressed about it (the last two elections), or not really old enough or politically aware enough to feel strongly one way or the other. It’s weird, but at the same time fucking wonderful, to finally get really jazzed about an election/inauguration, and feel proud of my country, and excited about our president, and just really, really hopeful about the future. So today was fucking AWESOME! And how about that speech?! It’s about goddamn time we stopped playing ostrich and started acknowledging that shit is fucked up, but I’m also glad we have a president who can do that without being daunted by what we’re facing. My only teeny-tiny nitpick was it was a little religious for me at times, and that there are other religious/belief-system groups in America in addition to “Christian, Muslim, Jews, non-believers, and Hindus.” But whatever. “God bless America” is pretty traditional at these things, and if Obama had tried to acknowledge every belief system in America, he’d never be finished. Oh, and also – I thought it was pretty funny to hear Rick Warren talking about compassion and God loving every individual He created, when Mr. Warren is anti-choice and anti-gay marriage. I’m just saying. And wasn’t there also a line about someday the whole world will be united under God? Whoa, there, hoss. But anyway. Yay Obama!
Today was not-so-awesome because it fucking snowed, but not enough to cancel work. Because I am 1-somewhat prone to falling down, and 2-terrified of falling down and getting hurt, I want it to snow so much, so fast that shit gets cancelled, or not to snow at all. If I can’t stay home, I don’t want it to snow. And then when it melts, I want it to melt all at once and dry up quickly, so I don’t have to worry about black ice. I know, right. As one of my coworkers said today, “You’re not asking much, then.” I know, I know, but still. I don’t want to fall down, I don’t want cars to skid and shit, etc. But it wasn’t that bad. We caught the bus in, and there were no mishaps. (Although a friend of mine’s bus almost did a 360 on Franklin St. – “only” ended up perpendicular to the road, and then sorted itself out. The “only” was her word. I would’ve pissed myself and gone home.) And the snow seems to have melted, for the most part, so maybe I won’t have to worry Wednesday night about Greg driving back from band practice and hitting black ice. (The forecast called for the worst black ice to be late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. And of course Greg says I don’t have to worry about him anyway, and of course we all know I’m going to just the same, if the snow’s not all melted away tomorrow, or it gets back below freezing.) But I have somehow managed to…I don’t know, fret about *something*. I wasn’t consciously freaking out about anything today, or really worried, but my stomach is in KNOTS, so I must be worried about something. Bullshit. Whatever.
And I get to go in late tomorrow morning. Although I do have to make up the time, but it’s only an hour, so an extra hour to sleep in, and then not too much to make up.
Patrick McGoohan died this week (on the 13th), and it wasn’t covered in any of the celeb gossip blogs I check, nor on IMDB’s “news.” What. the. fuck.
What a loss.
Therapy today kind of kicked my ass. We talked about the veins thing, whatever aversion this is that I have to organs and viscera and stuff. It was rough. But my therapist thinks, and I agree with her, that I can work past it. I’m not anticipating it will be entirely easy, either. Ah well.
And it’s fucking cold here, and it’s only going to get colder over the next two days or so. I’m not really into it, since staying home all day under the warm blankets isn’t really an option. Maybe I’ll do that Saturday, just stay in bed all day, with a heated-up rice pack, and be cozy.
(Wednesday, 1/14: I started this post yesterday evening, between finally getting up and shortly thereafter going back to bed. I am going to finish it tonight. Let’s just pretend I posted it all yesterday night, and then I won’t have to change verb tenses and shit. Awesome. And oh my fucking god if that neighbor kid with the fucking whistle doesn’t CUT THAT SHIT OUT I am going to kill him.)
I have been awake for maybe three, four hours today, and it has been one hell of a day. If you don’t want to read about poop and menstruation and how fucking nuts I am, now would be a good time to stop reading. Also, this is going to be pretty damn long, probably. I’ll try to break it up with some pictures.
First of all, I’m sick. It’s awesome, and by “awesome” I mean “pretty miserable.” I stayed home from work today, which I didn’t really want to do to begin with, and then we’ve got a new hire, and I was supposed to do some training today, so I felt even worse about staying home because of that. But I feel less bad about screwing up the training schedule than I would have felt about sharing my germies and getting the new person sick. So I stayed home, and drank water and oj, took nyquil, and slept all day. I feel better, but still pretty gross.
Here’s a picture of that etching I did for the grrl in Denmark:
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Second of all, I’ve been meaning to mention this, because it’s stuff that happened to me. This blog isn’t wildly entertaining or deep-thought-provoking, but it is a personal blog, and this was kind of a big thing, for me, anyway. So, the last three months, I haven’t had a period. I bet thousands – nay, millions, of women out there would rejoice about this, but you know I’m fucking nuts, so it’s not that simple. First I got freaked out that I might be pregnant, since me and Greg are never having kids. And even if we did change our mind and decide to have kids, I am never squeezing them out of myself, so it’d have to be adoption. So being pregnant, kind of problematic. So I ran through like two packs of pregnancy tests in three months (about six tests), and they were all negative, which was good but not really calming since I’m a little nuts, and couldn’t really believe that they were correct if I still wasn’t bleeding. So when the third period was missing, I went to the doctor. My thinking was, either I’m pregnant (and we’re, ah, running out of time to deal with it, to put it delicately), or it’s something really seriously bad (like cysts or endometriosis or some such). So, better get the doctor to check it out. Which I did. Turns out, it was just that I’d been on the lowest low-dose (of estrogen) birth control pill for long enough that I wasn’t building up enough endometrium in my cycle to even *have* a period. I told some of my female friends about this, and their responses have been, across the board, “Awesome!” Except that, remember, I’m neurotic, so I decided that as much of a pain in the ass as my period is, I really need to get it regularly so I don’t freak out that I’m pregnant or dangerously ill. So my doctor moved me up to the next higher level of low-dose pills, and I should be getting my period any day now. And the cramps are fucking insane, when they hit. So, as well as being sick today, I’ve had the worst cramps I’ve had in years. I’m kind of really scared about how bad these periods are going to be, on a higher level of estrogen.
First picture of my veins (which proved to be damn hard to photograph; story about veins starts a couple paragraphs down, but I’m spacing out the pics so here you are): if you have trouble seeing them, they run down between my first, second, and third knuckles, and there’s kind of an h-bar joining them an inch (in real life, probably not in the picture) below my second knuckle. GRODY. This is also why bitches are always like, “Are you *sure* we can’t do a handstick? It would be soooo easy.”
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Also. In case you don’t believe me when I say, “I’m fucking nuts,” here’s an anecdote. So my doc puts me on this new bc pill, and I ask about side effects, and she says basically nothing, really, but a slightly increased chance of blood clots, since bc thickens your blood to an extent, and the higher the dose, the thicker it is. And oh god, just typing this is making me squeamish and nauseous. Gross. I hate blood, I hate organs, all that shit in my body that keeps me going – it’s great, but just let me pretend it’s not there. Or rather, let me not be reminded of its existence. So anyway, I start taking the new pills, and then I’ll get a random throbbing ache in my calf, or in my upper arm, and immediately I think, “Oh shit, what if it’s a blood clot?” And part of me is thinking, “Jesus fucking christ, Kathy, it’s not a blood clot.” (“It’s not a tumor!”) But the other part of me is too busy freaking out about blood clots to pay any attention to my inner voice of reason. One night it got so bad, between the vague throbbing pain in my calf, and being up too late and too tired to distract myself from thinking about blood clots and then blood, that I had to take some klonopin to chill the fuck out. Then I got to bring it up with my therapist, the whole “I get a random pain and then I assume it’s a blood clot and freak out,” and we talked a little about how to deal with that. (Try harder to listen to my inner voice of reason, basically.)
Second picture of my veins: I find that if I lean to the side and look at the computer screen from an angle, it cuts down on the glare and the veins pop right out. (Gross pun.)
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Ready for more neurosis? Because *now* we get to the veins thing. Saturday night, Greg had to run sound at the Pinhook, and I’m home alone. I needed to take a shower, so I did, and while I’m in the shower, I notice that I can see alot of the veins in my arms and legs. (Oh god, I’m getting grossed out again. UGH. Why can’t I just be like a free-floating consciousness? And you think I’m joking, but I’m only half-joking.) I should point out that I am pretty goddamn fucking pale, and you can see my veins pretty much anywhere on my body on any given day, but I was already in freak-out mode, and trying to remind myself that I can *always* see my veins wasn’t helping because I was convinced that for some reason they were more visible than normal. Some reason like they’ve ruptured and I’m bleeding under my skin, or some reason like the fucking birth control has thickened my blood and now I can *see* it moving through my veins, or some reason like my blood is too cold and turning to sludge (thank you, episode of House that I really shouldn’t have watched). Because of course at this point, I was having a full-on panic attack, and it sure seemed to me that different bits of vein would be darker and then the “darker area” would move on, further down that vein, as if I were watching something moving through it. I swear I have no idea how I didn’t collapse in the shower, I was so fucking grossed out and panicky and my knees got weak. Anyway, I somehow managed to pull it together just barely enough to finish bathing, and then got the fuck out of the bathroom (so I couldn’t look in the mirror), put on long pajama pants and the longest-sleeved top I could find, so I wouldn’t accidentally see my arm or something and see a vein, and then took some klonopin and forced myself to meditate for fifteen minutes, and made some tea and drank it slowly. And by that time, I was fine. But for about thirty or forty minutes before then, it was fucking Crazy Town over here, let me tell you. I’ve even got some pretty nutty text messages I sent to Greg, but I won’t share them, since they more or less repeat what I’ve already told you.
Another picture of that vein – I think it’s the vein I find most upsetting, maybe. (Greg took the other picture, which is why it’s flipped.) And these pictures aren’t touched up, and the vein is maybe twice as noticeable in real life, compared to in this picture. Ugh, I hate it.
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So, yeah, I’m fucking nuts. And next time I see my therapist, I guess we get to talk about how I cope with the fact that I cannot fucking stand to see my veins on a good day (and totally go batshit about it on a bad day), and yet am so pale that not seeing them isn’t really an option. On the scale of things, not so bad. I’m not like, fantasizing about killing anyone, or myself, or actually hurting anyone, or myself. It could be worse, and it’s very possible, probable even, that she has other patients with bigger problems than mine. But I do have to wonder sometimes if she ever hears me say shit about what bothers me, my neuroses or whatever, and thinks to herself, “What the fuck have is her deal? Damn.” I also wonder if there’s some sort of syndrome for this, or if other people have similar problems. It’s maybe like body dysmorphic syndrome, only not really. I don’t hate my body, I don’t feel like it’s wrong, it’s just sometimes when I think about it, it’s too visceral. And then I can’t get away from it, because it’s my body. I mean, it’s *me*, it goes everywhere with me, so when it’s what’s grossing me out…Ick. Most of the time I’m fine and don’t think about it at all. And then usually when I do think about it, I can distract myself and think about something else and it’s not a big deal. But when I’m overtired, my mind just like…gets in these upsetting ruts, and runs in these tracks. I don’t like touching my throat, either. Something about how the stuff under the skin feels grosses me out too much. And holy shit am I glad I’m past the age where my male friends like to turn their eyelids inside out. Oh god, having to see that made a little bit of me die inside. But enough lingering on craziness, because there’s more (different) craziness to tell you about.
This picture is really hard to make out – if you look from an angle to the screen, you can kind of see some of the veins, but just barely. Which is really annoying since it’s grossing me out to edit these fuckers and post them here, and my thigh actually is pretty well-latticed with veins. I can make out a couple in the pic, especially some loopy, almost figure-eight-ish ones on the right side, but in real life…oof. Veiny. I tried the macro settings, and different flashes, and nothing. Good thing my job isn’t taking pictures for medical textbooks.
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So, home sick today, and sleeping for most of it. I woke up around five, Greg called to check on me on his way home, and I’m getting some water, puttering around, waking up, and Chalupa’s in the litter box, scratching at the litter like she does when she’s constipated. Oh yes. She was constipated. I manage to slip into the bathroom while she’s still in the litter box, and shut the door so we’re in there together. (She’s fucking impossible to catch when she knows you’re trying to get her, which we’ll get to later.) She gives up, and I’m like, “Well, maybe she, ah, worked it out.” But I can’t let her out of the bathroom unless I know for sure, because if she leaves poop tracks (or, worse, pieces of shit) around the house, I will be miserable. For me, having to deal with shit is close to having to think in vivid detail about my inner organs. I’m okay with shit if it’s in a toilet, in a litter box, outside on the ground (as long as I don’t step in it), or still in whoever’s intestines. Anywhere else, not so much. Especially when I’m the one cleaning it up, and then no matter how many times I wash my hands, I can still smell poop on them, even though it’s totally not there. (Nuts, remember?) So Chalupa hops out of the litter box, and as she passes me, I can see it: a turd about the size of the tip section of my ring finger sticking out. Now, I’m getting better about this whole shit thing, because I didn’t immediately freak out. In fact, I didn’t really ever freak out – it was more just thinking, “fucking great.” My first thought, actually, was that I wished I had my cell in the bathroom, because if Greg could see it, he’d probably laugh. He happened to come home right then, so I called him in to see it, and he chuckled. Then he left me to it.
Last veins picture. Sorry about the blurriness – I had to take it with my left hand. (I’m dominantly right-handed, all I do with my left hand is write, so the picture-taking was a little shaky.) I realized I was clenching my fist, so I relaxed it a bit, but not completely because when it was flat on the couch it was harder to make out. (Basically, my veins are about that visible, maybe a little more so, but don’t quite stand up above the back of my hand so much when my hand is relaxed. In the interests of loquaciousness and full disclosure.)
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How much detail do I give you? I mean, 1-you’re reading my blog, and if you’ve ever read it before, you’re probably inured to stuff like this; 2-it’s not that bad, really, Greg could describe much grosser stuff in much more graphic detail; 3-if you’ve gotten this far, you’ve already read about my period and my batshit neuroses. So why not go whole hog, right? Okay. So, I get quite a bit of toilet paper, and some wet wipes, and manage to remove most of the offending piece of turd. Chalupa was pretty much screaming the entire time – not because I was hurting her, but because I had to hold her in one place, and she fucking hates that. (I don’t know what her first family did to her, but she hates being restrained. Jesus christ, does it freak her out. So I try to do it only when absolutely necessary, and then be extra nice while it’s happening, and give her treats afterward.) So, basically, I’m holding her still with one hand, fucking sweet-talking her and trying to get her to chill out, and with the other hand helping her finish pooping. Nice, huh? I just basically grabbed the end of the poo that was sticking out, and gently pulled (like the vet told us was okay to do, last time Skeeter had stuff hanging out his butt, which you may remember, since I blogged that, too). Only it was so fucking dry, that it broke off, rather than come out in one piece. So, still constipated, still with a piece of poo right at the edge of her bum, and she’s still going to be scooting all over the apartment trying to work it out. (God. DAMN. How I hate scooting. And we’re considering getting a dog? I am either going to get over my issues with shit with a quickness, or wind up in the looney-bin for sure.)
A picture of the cat in question:
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Anyway, so then I crack the bathroom door open a teensy-weensy bit to discuss options with Greg – like, I read on Natalie Dee’s blog (the “Nonholio” entry, second on that page) about her new baby being constipated, and how you can “help” constipated infants out by rubbing their butts with a q-tip with vaseline on it, and whether he thinks that would work on, say, a six-pound cat. A six-pound cat is kind of like a baby, right? Except Natalie Dee’s baby is probably even smaller than Chalupa, but I was six pounds, six ounces when I was born, so…I don’t even know. I just was thinking that it was going to be a long time til the vet’s opened, and she needed to shit, and that the enema the vet gave her that time before was most certainly not the type of enema you can buy at CVS (which might kill a six-pound cat, I don’t know). I was trying to think of non-toxic, non-harming ways to work this thing out. Like, “I don’t know if I want to try sticking a q-tip *up* her butt, because I don’t want to hurt her, but maybe if we just put some vaseline on her butthole, that’ll help?” Crazy. Anyway, I thought I was being all slick and not opening the door enough for her to escape, but I was SERIOUSLY underestimating how small she is and how desperately she wanted out, because she totally got out.
Chalupa, feeling much, much better today (spoiler!):
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Remember how I said up above that she is motherfucking impossible to catch? Well, she is motherfucking impossible to catch. Me and Greg spent, I don’t know, a good twenty, thirty minutes trying to corral her back into the bathroom so I could try the vaseline. (It felt like ages, anyway. Maybe it was only ten minutes, but I’m sticking to twenty. Jesus.) Just back and forth, under the table, then under the couch, then between someone’s legs and back under the table. We caught her a couple times and she wriggled free almost immediately. She was insanely unhappy, poor thing. Finally Greg gets her, shoves her in the bathroom, and I wasn’t in the bathroom yet but I managed to get in and shut the door before she got out again. And then – MAGIC! She pooped! No straining, no crying, just got right in the litterbox and shat. I think it was all the running around that did it. Like when people are mildly constipated and they tell you to go take a long walk or something. (Or like how the goddamn *minute* I get on a treadmill I have to go, even if I tried to go right before and got nothing? It’s Pavlovian, pretty much.) So then I petted her, and kissed her, and let her sniff my hair (more on this, too), and gave her hella treats. And then we left her the fuck alone to chill out, so she didn’t feel like we were chasing her some more. And she was okay.
And the hair thing. She likes to sleep on top of my dresser. And in the mornings, it’s pretty cute, I’ll be getting clothes out to get dressed, and she’ll get up and stretch and walk to the front of the dresser top, and I’ll kiss her head, and then I’ll bend my head down and she’ll sniff my head for a bit, and then she settles back down. Kind of cute. Except that recently she has become, I don’t know, really, really into my hair, and trying to eat it (and not just mine, like I caught her sniffing at Jeremy’s hair and Kimmy’s hair one night when they were over). And I’ll be laying in bed reading or sleeping or whatever, and she’ll sneak up behind me and start licking my hair. Not cool. I don’t really want a hairstyle a la cat-chewing any more than I want her getting constipated or having hairs hanging out of her butt like Skeeter did that time.
And I think that’s it for now. Oh yeah – the emissions idiot light on the car? The rear catalytic converter needs replacing. Booooo. We can afford it, and it won’t be too tight, but really, when is it ever a convenient time to replace a catalytic converter (or anything just as or more costly)? Ah well. I’m grateful that we can manage it, and it wasn’t anything worse. (Now I better go find some wood to knock on, huh.)
YES! Greg fixed my computer. And then reinstalled Windows, and now it seems to be running better than it has in a while. He has rejuvenated my computer. Woo woo!
In other news, remember how I fell down twice in an hour on Dec. 11th and had to go to the hospital to get my elbow x-rayed? And they couldn’t find any broken bones, and then it hurt for like another week or two, and that seemed to be that. Well, a couple nights ago, I happened to touch my elbow, and shit is definitely not right. It doesn’t hurt, but there’s a bit of bone that feels like it’s got a divot that my right elbow doesn’t have, and then there appears to be a piece of free-floating something or other that squishes and squeaks around. It feels like cartilage, to be honest. (I showed Greg when I found it, and then I made Don feel it last night at the Armored Uprise show and grossed him out with it. It grosses me out, too, actually.) Anyway, so…shit’s not quite right, and I’ll be going to the doctor sooner or later (sometime in the coming months, anyway) just to have it looked at. It doesn’t hurt, and I don’t think it’s anything really wrong, but I’d hate for it to get seriously fucked up like ten years from now and a doctor tell me I should’ve had it looked at way back when.
Also, the emissions system indicator light is on in our car. Boo. We tightened the fuel cap, to see if it’s that (because it could be), and now we get to drive it for three days and see if the light shuts off. (Apparently, if it *is* the fuel cap, or was, it’ll take three days of normal driving to get the idiot light off.) If it doesn’t shut off, we get to go back to the dealership. That damn car.
Well, I’m doing pretty well right now thanks to two stupid klonopin. Which I didn’t even need to take until about forty minutes ago. Boo.
Today was pretty awesome: it rained quite a bit, thundered, it was awesome. We went to dinner at the Spotted Dog with Rick and Kea, and Jeremy and Kimmy, and that was awesome. Greg left for band practice, and I decided to finally get around to removing the toner from the second attempt at etching a trilobite for that grrl in Denmark who asked me to, and it was looking so fucking good, and that was AWESOME!
Then I got done removing the toner, and when you look right at it, it reflects too much for you to really see the trilobite – you have to look at an angle. Then I washed it off with soap to make sure all the toxic-y stuff was off – and I forgot to remove my titanium wedding ring. The ring is wonderful and I love it, but it’s fucking titanium, so it scratched the etching up a bit. Brilliant. AND THEN. Then I decided to try adding some matte black spraypaint to make the etched bits pop, and fucked that up, too. Luckily, nail polish remover took the spraypaint right off, so that was undone. It was a letdown, though. I’m not sure what to do. If you look straight at the copper, you can’t really see the etching. So I don’t know if it’s good enough to send. But without a squeegee, getting the spraypaint *only* in the etched out bits is impossible.
Then, because we got paid last Friday and I paid the bills that were due soon but hadn’t yet moved money aside for bills that are due in like two weeks, I thought I’d finally get around to that. Which requires getting on my computer and checking the bills spreadsheet. (The other delay was I hadn’t made worksheets for the January paychecks yet, so I’d just finished that on Sunday.) And my computer is FUCKED. Greg thinks it’s fixable, but my hopes aren’t very high at all. So, I have no idea how much money to put aside for upcoming bills. I could probably figure it out, but it’ll take a longass time, and I might forget something, and it’s all money-related shit going wobbly, so I freaked out and had to take the klonopin.
Anyway. So I’m trying to chill out, but since money and bills and getting bills paid properly and not bouncing shit (not that I’m in danger of bouncing anything, I don’t think, better go find some wood to knock on, but still), etc, is a real button-pusher for me, it’s not going so easily. Boo. But I’m watching Eddie Izzard (“Circle”), so that’s fun.
But here are the pictures I took from Hogswatch – not alot, and mainly of decorations: the Hogswatch banner, the sausage garlands, and the INCREDIBLE pig pinata Dara and Tiffianna made. (I still have the head, and plan to “mount” it, like a hunting trophy, and hang it in my cube, when I have a cube again.)
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Well, the foster person thought we’d be a good fit with the dog, but can’t hold her for us. Which makes sense – it’d be better for the dog not to get too used to the foster household*, and as long as she’s fostering this dog, she has one less “space” for other dogs who need fostering. And we just can’t adopt the dog while we’re in the apartment, so we’re going to wait until March and see. Now, it would be in the dog’s best interest to get adopted sooner rather than later, and she’s such a good dog (already knows how to get along with other dogs and cats, as well as people, already doing basic obedience courses, cute as shit, and kronschable ears), that I can’t imagine she’ll be available much longer. Unless bitches out here are SERIOUSLY smoking crack. Most of me wants her to get adopted soon, because it’s in her best interest. But I will admit that part of me hopes she’s still available in March so we can get her. (If she is, we will. If not, we’ll reevaluate whether we still want a dog, and if we do, just find another of their dogs that’s been fostered with cats and knows how to get along with them, and is cute and well-behaved. But I really, really, really like this one particular dog, so getting that email last night – that they couldn’t hold her for us – was a letdown. We’ll see what happens, though.)
*A couple years ago, we tried to adopt a dog from the same rescue, Monkey, and I even blogged about him. Unfortunately, his foster family had had him for something like a year, a year and a half, with the two dogs they owned permanently, and two other dogs they’d been fostering for a while. So he’d gotten used to having four other dogs and basically constant companionship, even when the humans were at work. We only had Daoine at the time, and while she and Monkey took to each other immediately (he walked in the apartment and licked her in the face, and I thought she was going to claw his eyes out, but she apparently liked being licked in the face, and they’d snuggle and groom each other, it was cute) – anyway, they got along, but, being a cat and not inclined to run around the apartment with him ALL DAY LONG, she wasn’t enough company for him. (Sometimes she’d sleep on top of bookshelves, which he couldn’t get to.) And he had severe separation anxiety, and we couldn’t get a second dog, so we ended up taking him back to his foster peeps after a month. And they ended up keeping him permanently, which was the best for him, but it fucking sucked for us, and I cried a ton. That’s the short version. Anyway, we DEFINITELY do not want another Monkey, so I totally understand why it’s in the dog’s best interest to be fostered as short as possible before getting adopted. But I still kind of hope this one is still available in March. I feel like what’s supposed to happen will happen, but the waiting til March is…well, waiting. Boo. But if this dog is meant to be our dog, it’ll work out, and if not, I’ll be let down about it, but I’ll get over it, and then we’ll find whatever dog *is* meant for us, if we still want a dog. (They’re alot of work, yo. If we got this particular dog, I’d totally be down for getting up at six am to walk her and scoop poop, and put in all the other “work.” But they are work and responsibility, so if she gets adopted, we’re going to take another look at it and make sure we’re up for it before finding another dog to adopt. I mean, I think we’ll get a dog – now that we’ve gotten used to the idea of all the work involved, and the life changes, I think we were both looking forward to all the fun stuff having a dog entails. But I just want to make sure, and I feel like this setback is another chance to check in and make sure we’re really ready to be dog-owners, too.)
