Pimp

I have reached maximum information storage. My brain is fried. This project from hell is, well, hellish. My mind decided to shut down a few minutes ago. No more spreadsheets for Laura. No more meetings, no more thinking. No. More.

I am recovering with these:

Apparently I have a lot of long-lost twin sisters across the Internet. Amy is one of them. She pokes the bear and gets her dog drunk.

Garfield Minus Garfield. Funnier without Garfield. Sometimes even poignant.

Mark your calendars for November 21st.

I can look at this romantic little gem of a website for hours.

This site cracks me up, even though I don’t always get it.

I listened to the reading that Crystal did for me a while back, again today. Fascinating stuff, and comforting, and interesting, and smart. Even if you’re skeptical about readings, I highly recommend Crystal! She’s a beautiful soul. And you’ll probably learn something about yourself that you didn’t realize before.

There’s lots and lots of history of the British kings and queens and history of England/Europe here. Even if history isn’t your thing, it’s still really interesting to research.

Feed your obsession. Go on, you know you want to.

My friend Jayne takes fantastic pictures.

I’m pretty sure you’re gonna wanna go off and make these right this very second. Oh my GOD, do they look good or WHAT?

“That” guy.

In every meeting I’ve ever attended, there’s always “that” guy. The one that questions every point in the presentation. The one that keeps going back to discussions held previously. The one who derails things and won’t just sit and listen. The one who’s questions will be answered if he’d just SHUT UP until the end of the presentation.

I’m in the 27th minute of a one hour teleconference, with attendees from the US and Asia. “That” guy has forced discussion on slide #3 (of 26) for the past twenty minutes.

I’m ready to MDK “that” guy. Just as soon as I get funds authorization for the trip to Asia.

I got married to the widow next door…

Jen got me Season One of The Tudors for my birthday. While the show plays fast and loose with timelines, characters, and events, it’s very entertaining. And VERY rated “R”.

Anyway. Watching the show has renewed my interest in European history, particularly the succession of royalty and the line to the throne. I found this page on tudorhistory.org which delineates the family tree of Henry VIII and his six wives. And here is where I discovered something very interesting.

Henry (1491-1547) and ALL of his wives are, ultimately, direct descendants of King Edward the I (1239-1307), through his two marriages. The intermingling of the families involved is difficult to decipher (I’m unused to reading family trees) but it seems like this particular family tree has more trunk than branches. I mean, if you pick just one thread and follow it down you find a startling amount of marriages between differing degrees of cousins. 

Here’s something fun, if you can follow me.  At the very beginning of the tree, Edward I married Eleanor and had daughter Margaret.  Years after Eleanor died, Edward I married again, this time to Marguerite of France, and had son Thomas. Margaret’s marriage produced a son (John III), and Thomas’ marriage produced a daughter (yet another Margaret). John III and Margaret married. 

So. John’s mother and Margaret’s father were half-siblings.

Put another way, an intermarriage occurred between the grandchild of Edward I and his first wife, with the grandchild of Edward I and his second wife.

Eep.  What does that make them?  My brain hurts.

Back to my original ponderance, I wonder if Henry chose wives decended from Edward I on purpose? Or were there few enough people in the aristocracy at the time that common ancestors and intermarriage were unavoidable? Certainly if you try to trace today’s royal family back a few hundred years it’s pretty hard to find a common thread. I started with Prince William and went back to the 1700’s before I gave up, and didn’t see much – or really, any – commonality among the relations.

Still. How cool would it be to be able to trace your lineage back hundreds and hundreds of years? I only know back as far as my great-grandparents on my mother’s side, and I know nothing at all about my father’s side.

Okay. Probably this stuff is only interesting to me (I can see Calvin rolling his eyes even as I type this). He may think that books are stupid, but he agrees with me that history is awesome. He just prefers WWII history (of which he is the utmost expert) over pretty much anything else.

As for me, I’m having way too much fun digging up evidence of inbreeding. Yarg.

Dark and twisty

I used to run a short-story collaboration called “Storyteller”, whereby I posted a topic once a month, and the collab participants would submit stories based on that topic. I’d publish them on my website and we’d discuss them. I wish it was still going on, but it didn’t garner enough interest or momentum to continue. Still, all the entries and contributions remain out there in the ether for our entertainment.

I just re-read this one that I wrote back in September of ‘05 in response to the topic, “The one that got away.” What a dark and twisty piece of work it is! It’s funny, I don’t remember actually writing it. I don’t remember the writing process of any of my short stories, they’re just there. I did them, got the idea out of my head and onto “paper”, then promptly forgot about them.

Weird.

In the re-reading of them, my fingers itch to polish them up a bit. But I’m going to leave them alone. They’re done. They reflect the writing style and headspace that I had/was in at the time. I think I’m going to try my hand at another short story sometime soon, and see if I still have the knack of it. I used to write them all the time, for my own entertainment. I still have all the word docs, and earlier hand-written stuff from back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, back when I first discovered an urge to write fiction. I used to get ideas for stories all the time. Not so much, lately.

Really, the first time that I recall having to write a story because its concept loudly occupied my brain and wouldn’t leave me alone until I got it OUT, was in eighth grade (GAH… bravely dating myself, that would be circa 1987-1988). I still have it, written long-hand for an English assignment. It’s hidden in my bedroom closet and it’s going to STAY there.

Prose-type reality style journaling and blogging has been the main fixture of my writing since the first grade. It’s fun (and good for one’s writing skills) to occasionally exercise my brain in a different way.

Here, have a laugh at these other gems:

Untitled – February 2001.

It Could Have Been- April 2001. (GAH. Actually, don’t read that one.)

Gamepieces – June 2001.

The Awakening – January 2002. (Actually, I kind of like this one.)

Summer Wind Gods – March 2002. (Obviously I was homesick when I wrote this one.)

Oh, the humanity.

Murder. Death. Kill.

Calvin just got home from work, set his laptop up on the couch (where I was innocently working away), put on Bubba the Love Sponge on Sirius, then walked away and left me here to listen to this idiocy.

Just some random things.

I spent a good chunk of time Saturday afternoon and evening, and part of Sunday morning, burning CD’s. Four people wanted just Peace Pipe, sixteen wanted both Peace and Crack Pipe, and I had one special request from Dyskinesia. So that was… (carry the two, minus seven…) thirty-eight CD’s total. At seven minutes per CD, that’s… (carry the four, divided by twelve…) about four and a half hours of CD burning goodness. My laptop held up like a champ, and I had a built in, unshakable reason to sit my ass on the couch and read and watch TV and not move around all that much. So, no complaints here! I might have CD giveaways more often, for that very reason.

I discovered about 2/3 of the way through that I’d neglected to increase the “line in” volume of the recording settings, so these are probably going to be kind of quiet. Ah, well, just another reason to crank up the volume! I tested both CD’s – Calvin poo-poo’ed the “Peace Pipe” CD, which I expected. He also declared the “Crack Pipe” CD as not being crackish enough. Well, you can please some of the people some of the time…

Le sigh.

I will say that the Peace Pipe track list gave me no trouble at all (I actually had more songs in mind than what would fit on the CD), but it was quite a challenge to put together nineteen songs for the Crack Pipe track list. I suppose, given my, erm… condition, I gravitate more towards music that cheers me or soothes me, rather than tunes that jack me up. In the end I put together a CD I was happy with, but a couple of songs are less… driving… and are more on there just because they have a good beat. YMMV.

——–

Poor Oz. He’s wandering around the house in a forlorn fashion, yowling and pacing and being generally unhappy. Marie’s pit bull, left inside last night while we went out on the motorcycle for a couple of pints down the pub, took her boredom out on Ozzy’s stuffed kangaroo. The one he “kills” every night and lays as an offering at the foot of our bed. The one he fixated on as a kitten and which has been his constant companion ever since. Well, until last night. We got home to find Kanga de-stuffed and shredded all over the floor, a guilty looking Porche (the pit bull) wanting Out. I’ll look for another Kanga for Ozzy today, but I have a feeling he won’t take to a new one with much enthusiasm.

It’s completely silly how badly I feel about this.

——–

Calvin played Battlefield: Bad Company(an Xbox 360/Playstation game) for several hours last night and has declared it, “Awesome”. So if you’re into first-person POV shoot-em-up games, I must admit as an observer that this one is highly entertaining.

——–

I have MASSIVE amounts of grocery shopping to do, which I will get to after my workout and shower. And after this entry. And after a couple of things I need to get done, work-wise. And after some more goofing off and general laziness. GAH. I hate running errands, and our grocery needs are such that I can’t get everything all in one place. I HATE that.

I’m trying out a couple of new recipes this week, which if they meet with my approval will subsequently be posted over at World Famous Nosh. If you haven’t wandered over to my recipe blog lately, you really should. And you should try out three or four or twelve of the recipes, and let me know what you think. At the very least you should make the Incredible Crock Pot Meatloaf. Your life is not complete without it, regardless of what you might think.

Anyway, I’ve got a recipe for beef brisket in ale, a recipe for chicken pie (without all the nasty veggies – just chicken and potatoes and gravy and crust… mmmmmm…), and I’m trying out Pioneer Woman’s recipe for beans, since simple is how Calvin likes ‘em and I haven’t gotten it down quite yet.

——–

Well! Crap to do and no gumption with which to do it. I’m out, folks!

Finally!

The “Peace Pipe” and “Crack Pipe” playlists are finalized, the inserts are done, the addresses are collected, and now all I have to do is burn ‘em and put ‘em in the mail. So expect your copies within the next week or so! (More for international folks, certainly.)

Thanks for your patience!

What are YOU doing for the next hour?

I have GAD – Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I have Depression, too, which I still struggle with on occasion – actually, I’ve seen its return over the past couple of weeks. It generally manifests itself as laziness – I just sit and do nothing and feel like doing nothing and stare off into space, rather than being productive and getting stuff done. I take a nap to shut my brain off, or submerge myself in a book. I find it hard to get up in the morning, and I’m more tired than usual. The housework piles up, and I do the bare minimum at work to get by. Eventually, though, the blues pass and I get my head straight again.

But the GAD? It’s permanent and it’s daily.

At this moment in time, I’m not on any meds. I was, not too long ago. After about a million (well, three or four) different variations and combinations, I hit on a combo that suited me. An Effexor/Welbutrin mixture that was HELL to ramp up on, and HELL to come off of. But in the middle it made things pretty normal, pretty okay. However, it’s that ramp-up and ramp-down (primarily caused by the Effexor) that make me reluctant to go back on meds, when I go through a rough patch. It’s at least a year-long commitment, when I decide to “go back on”.

With GAD, the hardest thing to deal with is, well, the general nature of the anxiety (hence the name, huh?). If there were one specific thing I was afraid of, one thing I could nail down that was causing me distress, I could face it, deal with it, kick it in the nuts, and put it to bed. But no, there is nothing specific to pin down and conquer. There’s just a constant feeling in the pit of my stomach – ranging from butterflies to pterodactyls – that has me on a constant churn.

So I have this low-level, manageable level of anxiety that’s pretty much a constant part of me. It’s like a buzz in the back of my head, causing my shoulders to climb up toward my ears and making me hold my breath a lot, until I see pretty sparkles and remind myself, oh, YEAH, exhale. Inhale. Breathing. Right.

But then there are the full-blown panic attacks, which I indulge in, oh, I’d say once a week or so.

They usually hit me when I’m at rest – though every now and then I’ll get one when I’m at work, or right in the middle of something, or during some circumstance that’s completely random. Most often, though, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, or from a nap, or moments before the alarm goes off in the morning, practically TWITCHING with a spastic need to getupgetupgetup because there’s screaming in my head and tension in my gut. I HAVE TO be mobile, animated, in motion when this feeling hits me. Because I can’t just sit still and let it wash over me. I just can’t. There’s chaos in my head – a vast array of thoughts, songs I can’t get out of my mind, anxious times that I’m forced to re-live all at once, nonexistent tragedies and problems I create from nothing, every sound that I’ve ever heard and every thought that I’ve ever had… they all hit me all at once, at the very same time, crashing together in my head.

Sounds wicked crazy, doesn’t it? You should see it from my end. My head is a very noisy place to be in, sometimes.

My body is practically vibrating, yet when I hold my hands out in front of me I’m shocked to see that they’re not shaking. This is what my brain does to me. I’m like an equalizer with all the channels pegged. All this kinesis going on in a body that’s perfectly still. And then, when I do go to move, my motions are jarring, over-compensated, uncoordinated. I drop things, I knock things over, I bump into things.

At first I try to just muscle my way through it. I’ll do something that requires physical effort – get on the elliptical, clean the house, go for a walk. I’ll give myself a stern talking to. I’ll listen to loud music. I’ll write (o hai). Sometimes that helps. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I just give up the ghost and pop a Xanax.

Better living through pharmaceuticals. And that stuff is the SHIT.

I’m pretty damned good at hiding my anxiety. I’ve perfected the art of appearing normal – or at least sane – to the public at large. Calvin catches me, sometimes, when I’m acting spastic and erratic. I confess what’s going on to him, because he’s always been supportive, even if he can’t quite understand what the hell is wrong with me.

He’s fond of saying that if I could ever really read his mind I’d run away screaming. It makes me want to laugh. He has NO IDEA. OH. Oh, my. It’s cute, really.

The ironic thing is that when I feel like this, I go searching in my brain for a reason for it. It’s like, I’m feeling anxious, so there must be something to be anxious about. There isn’t, really and truly there isn’t. The feeling comes with no rhyme or reason. So, I start to make shit up. Calvin will die. Like, tomorrow. I can’t let him out of my sight. I’ll die. It’ll probably hurt. The bills are going to hell. We don’t have enough money. I’ll never go home again. Something bad is going to happen. Something wicked this way comes.

If I scream I’ll just keep on screaming. If I cry I’ll never be able to stop. If I sit very, very still, maybe Fate won’t see me. I’m a field mouse and the hawk is up there, somewhere.

You guys, I’m serious. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to shatter from the inside out.

As Charlie Bartlett said (I’m paraphrasing, here), “Nobody has ever died from a panic attack. Just think to yourself, ‘I’m having a panic attack. In fifteen minutes, I’ll probably feel better.’” And I do. Not usually in fifteen minutes, but within the hour things have calmed down, my heart rate has come back to normal, my thoughts are no longer racing, and Doom is no longer just around the corner.

It’s a fucked up way to spend an hour, though.

Grateful.

I’m grateful for my friends. Heather, who’s voicemail I just listened to, and who’s voice made me smile. Dawn and Kami, who sent me lovely happy birthday wishes. Jayne, who sent me a wonderful card and yet another mix CD to add to my collection. Kim, who’s birthday is five days after mine and who always remembers to call me. Jen, who really REALLY gets me. I’m also grateful for the friends that I haven’t listed here, because they know I haven’t forgotten them and it’s nothing personal (a worry I always have when I list friends or bloggers I read or whatever).

I’m grateful for my husband. He teases me out of my blues, makes me laugh until I cry, and loves me for who I am.  He participates in my life, is interested in what I do, and encourages me to write.  He cares about my on-line life and gets why I need to do this (I love love love it when he comments, and I still wish he’d start a blog of his own).

I am grateful for my readers. I have “met” so many wonderful people and have been exposed to so many spectacular writers. I have “virtual friendships” that are every bit as fulfilling as those friendships I have in person.  I have gained support, encouragement, advice, and solidarity. I completely enjoy this vast, ongoing, Great Conversation.

I’m grateful for the blogs and on-line journals that I read. Through them I am entertained, but primarily I am encouraged to think and to feel. Even the blogs that are hard, emotionally, to read – those who talk about their grief, their illness, their loss. I am reminded of the fragile nature of life, the delicate state of happiness. I am taught how to have strength of will. I am given growth of character, nourishment of spirit, and the appreciation of the life I live. I am enriched more than I can explain, through these glimpses of lives not my own.

I am grateful for the mundane aspects of my life – my job, my routine, my chores. That I can complain about the mundane means that I am healthy in body and mind. My relationship is secure, my family is happy. I have a home and money to pay the bills. My needs are met, so that I can fuss about my wants.

I am grateful for the person I am, the lessons I have learned, and the upbringing that I experienced, that allows me to understand just what it means to be grateful.

Heather

Let me tell you about my friend Heather.

(And I just went to her site to grab her URL for this link and discovered that SHE had just written an entry about ME… how’s THAT for a coincidence?)

She has taken friendship to the level of fine art. I fully confess that she’s a better friend to me than I am to her – she’s just plain good at friendship in general. She sends me cards and e-mails and text messages and calls me “just because”, far FAR more often than I do her. It makes me feel guilty and lucky at the same time.

A couple of weeks ago she made me a mix cd and tried to send it express so that I would have it sooner than later. I got the delivery notice from the post office, signed the card and taped it to my front door for them to deliver on their “second attempt”, and they never came back. I went to the post office, it wasn’t there. Heather called eleventy-billion people, they said it was at the post office, I went again, and it still wasn’t there. It was supposed to go back to Heather after five days of non-delivered status, it never went back.

Yesterday, FINALLY, the post office delivered the package. It was a box. A box, I thought? For one mix CD?

HAH.

She sent me SIX. SIX mix CD’s of songs that she hand-picked for me. Complete with track lists. AND a full-page letter, hand-written (a lost art form in and of itself), front and back, for EACH CD, listing each song and what it means to her or why she picked it or just a funny little note to me. You guys, this must have taken her HOURS to do. And she did it just because she loves me.

I love her back. I’m so lucky she’s my friend. She’s DAMN good at it.