Inane Chatter

I’m not allowed to blow my nose.  Ridiculous?  Yes.  Am I following that rule?  Yes, because the oral surgeon convinced me that if I blow my nose before the hole in my gums has healed, my head might explode.  Or something.  But being forced to sniffle for a week is seriously irritating.  And I keep forgetting.  I’ve found myself on the brink of blowing my nose at least four times, and I’ve actually done it three times.  Followed by “SHIT!  I’m not supposed to do that!”

On top of that, work is getting on my nerves (look at your own damn calendar) ,and it’s COLD outside.

And no, Jell-O, frown is NOT a four-letter word.  Now leave me the hell alone.  (That was directed to Jell-O, whose pudding and gelatin products I’m thoroughly tired of, of course.  Not you.  I didn’t realize that was possible.  Of whose pudding and gelatin products I am thoroughly tired.  And up with which I will not put.  Anymore.  Likewise.  Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self defense.)

Who knew being knocked unconscious for an hour could be so tiring?  I did a little light cleaning around the house today, and I was feeling a little better, so we ventured outside on a short errand.

I am WIPED.  Turns out I was not ready for that, and so I think tomorrow will be a couch day.  Despite the lure of seeing friends with a visiting adorable puppy (who we will make sure we see next week).  (The friends, not the puppy.)  Now I’m back to trying to hold pudding down and wondering if ramen or mac & cheese is a better dinner choice.  Probably ramen.  ‘Cause I really do need to eat something.  And the evil doctor has deprived me of toast!  The only thing I really want is toast, and I can’t chew it yet.  (Would you like some cheese with your whine?  NO!  I can’t have either!)

Back to the couch and the TV I go.

Edited to add: Mom warned me.  She was right.  I’ll pay attention next time, I promise! 

I’m having a tooth pulled tomorrow, and I’m a little anxious.  I don’t like pain.  Maybe it won’t hurt.

For a number of reasons, today kinda sucks.  It could be worse (it could be SO much worse), but it’s not what I wish for when I look forward to my weekends.  I’m working, John’s working, we’ve been camped out at the dining room table for most of the day, sitting across from each other with our heads buried in our laptops, and that’s not really the part that kinda sucks.  Mostly, it’s exhaustion. Roxy had another seizure last night, around 11pm, and this time, neither of us could go back to sleep until after 1am.  Out the window went our plans (my plan, anyway – not sure if that was John’s plan, too) to run this morning.  Instead, we slept until nearly ten.  Not good sleep.  Woke up feeling like we hadn’t slept at all, and since we have no milk in the house,  I went to Dunkin Donuts to pick up breakfast.  (Yes, no milk = bagels.  And Starbucks.  It does not equal go to the store and buy milk since you have to leave the house either way, dumbass.)  The Dunkin Donuts in our tiny town is the WORST Dunkin Donuts.  This morning was it – I’m never going to that one again.  This time, before ten am on a Saturday, they were out of plain bagels, out of plain cream cheese, and they didn’t give me the hash browns I paid for, even though they repeated the order back to me three times AND they’re on the receipt.  They’ve screwed up our order lots of times, they make terrible coffee, and they even manage to screw up iced chai.  John tells me (and I know this – I’ve been to others) that this Dunkin Donuts is not representative of the whole company, but still.  This one?  Dead to me.  That, on top of no sleep, on top of the half-hour wait at Starbucks (It may have only been 10 minutes, but it felt longer.  At least they got my order right.), all BEFORE breakfast, with no run to clear my head or make me feel virtuous for exercising when I’m eating a not-healthy breakfast, followed by WORKING makes today not the greatest Saturday.

Also, my head hurts.

Also also, I might feel better if I’d showered this morning.  I swear, that’s happening soon.

Also also also, I didn’t like the book I just finished (finally), The Emperor’s Children, so that may have been contributing to this mood.  I couldn’t even escape into my book!

Why have I been having such a hard time writing lately?  I’d like to blame it on not having much free time, and spending what free time I have reading (although I haven’t been doing much of that), or…honestly, I don’t know what I’ve been doing in the evenings.  Making dinner, eating it while watching some show with John, and then what?  Cleaning up and going to bed? Writing a short paragraph here and then quitting for the night?  The only time I’ve spent reading is before sleep and over breakfast.

Wah wah wah.  Stop whining already.

I took the dogs on my hill workout this morning and let them drag me up the first two.  By the third one, I was dragging them.  You know how, when a dog steps over the leash so just one leg is on the wrong side, they’ll sometimes do a little hop to get free?  Roxy’s pretty good at that, but this morning she managed to get the leash wrapped around her leg, not just crossed under.  She tried to hop out of it a couple of times and when she figured out that it wasn’t going to be that easy, she stopped and picked her little paw off the ground and held it out to me.  SO cute.

Somehow, that reminded me that we need to renew our passports soon.  Can’t believe it’ll be ten years this November.  Must mean I’m getting old.  That’s getting a little close to whining again.  Time to quit.

I need a new 0-calorie drink for work.  A hot drink.  My office is freezing, and I’m already wearing a sweater.  I spend all day drinking water, but water is cold.  I’m trying not to let myself get hot chocolate or coffee or tea (I add way too much milk and sugar to coffee (and tea) to make it drinkable, and I don’t need the calories from either drink), but I don’t really see any other options.  It looks like I either need to learn to drink my coffee (or tea) black (gross – makes me shudder just thinking about it) or I need to start heating up my water.  And that’s just weird.  So maybe I’ll just suffer.

You know what shouldn’t be allowed?  Eighty degrees before 6am.  Hell, eighty degrees before 9am.  The only reason I’m getting up this early (5:15 today) is so I can run in the cooler temperatures before the sun comes up.  Sure, 80 degrees is not as hot as our high of 102 yesterday, but I’d hardly call it cooler, especially not when I’ll be warming up while running anyway.  Back in the AC I go.

I seem to have broken my header picture.  I was trying to change it to something closer to summer than spring, and nothing looked quite right (but it was working), so I tried to put the flowers back.  Not working.  The file is in the right folder (I didn’t move it out), it’s the right size (I didn’t change it), and it’s in my stylesheet with the right file name, but it’s not showing up on the screen.  Gah.  I already had a headache.  This isn’t helping.

Update: Now the picture and the tag line are broken.  I need to update the template and my version of WordPress, and while I’m at it, I might just change the way the whole site looks.  I’m too irritated to do any of that now, plus it’ll keep me up later than I want to be up, and I’ll just get more and more irritated if I know I’m going to be exhausted tomorrow because I’m up fixing this, so I’m putting it off.    I’m irritated just thinking about it.   I’m irritated about my repeated use of the word “irritated”.  Ugh.

So.  Calm, relaxing, deep breaths.  I can fix this tomorrow.

Update #2: Um…I’m on my work laptop this morning and everything looks fine.  I didn’t do anything.  Tiny elves must have fixed it overnight and now I owe them some monumentally huge favor that will be called in at the most inconvenient time.  I’m still going to do those updates, though.  Probably over the weekend.

I had dinner tonight in the hotel restaurant (actually very good and decently priced) because it was chilly out and I’m lazy.  Also, I’m aiming for a ridiculously early bedtime tonight and I didn’t want to have to go far for dinner.  Anyway, on my way back to my room, I headed for the bathrooms in the lobby to throw some trash away.  I went in that bathroom earlier tonight (I had one of those sneezing fits that just won’t quit – I hate those), and when I pushed open the door this time and reached towards the trash can, I thought “this looks different from earlier – “  When I reached that point in the thought, I snatched my hand back, jumped about three feet in the air, and threw myself back out the door.  Of the men’s bathroom.  Luckily for me, no one was in there and no one was in the hallway just outside the door to see me come flying out.

I still haven’t tried very hard to like Duluth.  At least the sun came out today.  If it’s still shining tomorrow, and more importantly, if I get enough sleep tonight and exercise tomorrow morning, I’ll try again.  I’m so done with traveling.  It’s hard to care.  I want to try, I want to see what’s great about Duluth (I’m sure there are great things), but only half-heartedly.  Traveling alone loses its appeal (it had appeal?) after the first five weeks.

Ugh, that’s depressing.  I swear, I’m just tired.  And brain-dead.

I am not in the mood to appreciate Duluth.  I got to my hotel last night right around midnight (central time, so it felt like 1am).  I was a little lucky getting in, though.  The rental car counter closes at 11:30, and that’s when my flight was supposed to land, so I thought I was going to have to take a cab to the hotel, then a cab to work (since the rental car counter doesn’t open again until 7:30 in the morning, which was when I was supposed to be at work), then a cab to the airport to pick up the car after work.  I wasn’t looking forward to that.  Fortunately, my flight landed ten minutes early and the rental car counter is less than 10 feet from the baggage carousel.  The one baggage carousel.  Duluth is tiny.  So, lucky me, I got my rental car.  Small yay.  Anyway, midnight at the check-in desk and thankfully, no one else was in the lobby, ’cause the check-in guy took it upon himself to bellow my room number to the space at large rather than just point to where he wrote it down for me like most hotels.  It was 1am before I could turn off my light, and all I wanted to do was sleep for hours and hours, but 1) it wasn’t dark in my room, and 2) I had to get up 5:45 to get to work on time.  Why wasn’t it dark in my room?  Because the Holiday Inn in downtown Duluth doesn’t believe in blackout curtains.  All I had were sheers, and my room faced the bright green Holiday Inn sign.  Still, I was tired, so I didn’t notice as much as I might have on a normal night.  5:45 came too early, but I made it to work okay and then through the day without falling over.  The day itself could have been better (I forgot to buy candy to bribe my students, so they were less enthusiastic than I was used to, and the lights in the room we were in were either too bright to see the projector screen or too dark to keep anyone awake), but it went well enough.  I headed back to my room thinking I might take a walk down the lakefront to find dinner, but it was raining, so that idea went out the window.  Speaking of the window, I was going to change clothes, but I saw a rope dangling from an upper floor.  I took a closer look and found a guy on one of those window-washing platforms about three feet down and three feet to the right of my window.  I could see him, and if he looked to his right, he could see into my room.  Not okay when I only have sheers on my windows.  On top of that, about 30 seconds after I noticed him, he started drilling into the wall outside my room.  SO loud.  I was on the phone with John, and he could hear it, too.  That eventually stopped (around six), but when I called the front desk to ask about it, they said it’ll be going on all week.  Shortly after that, the fire alarm went off.  The front desk made an announcement asking us to stay in our rooms while they investigate to find out if it’s a false alarm.  The alarm went off again, and then I heard the announcement of the false alarm.  Except that then the alarm went off again.  And again.  And again.  All in all, it went off about six times before I gave up and found a new hotel.  So now I’m somewhere else, in a hotel that has a really nice lobby and really nice employees (the check-in guy was great – upgraded my room while keeping me on the rate I’m supposed to be on for work) and HEAVY CURTAINS ON THE WINDOWS.  I never knew how important that was to me until the last few weeks.  In NC, the hotel only had sheers, but it wasn’t downtown or anything, so it got fairly dark at night.  In RI, the B&B had shutters that didn’t completely block out the light, but they were so cute and I was so relaxed that, while I would have preferred a darker room, it didn’t really bother me.  When I don’t have to wake up to an alarm clock, I enjoy waking up to sunlight streaming in my window.  But for work?  While traveling?  I want a dark room and real curtains.  Especially when there are men working outside my window.

Anyway, Duluth is not winning me over.  I’m sure it’s fine, and maybe I’ll like it better when the sun is shining and I’ve had a good night’s sleep, but I’m not seeing its charm at the moment.

I’m home (yay), and I’m so glad, ’cause if I have to be this tired, I prefer to be home to deal with it.  My flight left Raleigh-Durham at 6:10 this morning.  Which meant I had to be at the airport at 5am.  Which means I had to have already returned my rental car, and that means I had to leave my hotel by 4:30.  So I got up at 3:30.  AM.  The very definition of the middle of the night.  And because I’m not all that bright, I didn’t go to bed until almost 10 last night.  I slept like a rock who didn’t want to wake up when the alarm went off.  But the low-level anxiety I always feel about getting to the airport on time forced me to be alert enough to make sure I didn’t leave anything in the hotel, drive to the airport (which was only 5 exits away), and return the car.  Once I got to the terminal, though, I started to fade.  I got an iced vanilla chai (my favorite) and a croissant at Starbucks and read my book until boarding.  Fun fact about Raleigh-Durham International: there’s a used bookstore right next to the Starbucks!  Great idea for an airport concourse.

I got my second wind (sort of) once I got on the plane, and I had a pleasant conversation with the guy sitting next to me for about half the flight, mostly about TV shows.

Him: Did you watch Lost?

Me: Yeah.  Do you think about that every time you get on a plane?

Him: Yup.  And we’re in the tail section.  We’re doomed.

From there we covered The Unusuals (should never have been canceled), which led to Firefly (tragically canceled), which led to everything Nathan Fillion has ever been in, which led to Castle, which is his new favorite show now that Lost is over.  And I may have to agree.  I love Castle.  Anyway, he was a nice guy, and it was a pleasant flight.

My third wind (I napped a little on the plane) got me home and to the dry cleaners, and then through my run and my shower, but when I tried to leave the house (around 1:30) to get my car inspected and renew the dogs’ licenses, I had to turn the car around and go back home (I made that decision at the bottom of the hill – not far from the house).  I napped for an hour (and woke up feeling like seven more would be a good idea) and then took care of the dogs and the licenses.  Now I’m home, fighting to stay awake so I’ll sleep normally tonight.  Looks like I don’t get a fourth wind.  But this is helping.

Call me lazy (and it would be true), but I don’t have the energy to write a real post, so here’s one full of links to other things.  I did do something today, and I took lots of pictures, and frankly, it’s the thought of posting pictures that’s wearing me out, so that will have to wait.

So go visit Tricia (who’s engaged!) as she writes about not rushing through life, and Tokenblogger, who’s stuck on the night shift (I feel her pain – night watches were always the worst).

Oh, I haven’t mentioned my rental car this time, although maybe that’s because it’s hardly worth mentioning.  I’m driving a Pontiac G6 (power everything – yay!) and there are two things it does that bug me a little.

1. When I slow down or come to a stop, the volume of the radio turns down.  On its own.  Like it’s possessed.  What if I didn’t want it to get quieter?  On the other hand, it gets louder when I go faster, and I don’t have a problem with that…
2. When I shut off the engine, the doors unlock.  On their own.  ALL of them.  What if I’m in a bad neighborhood?  Maybe I’m worried that someone will jump in the car and force me to drive somewhere at gunpoint.  But really, what if that happened?  I really think I should be in charge of the locks.  On the other hand (there’s always another hand), I like that all the doors lock automatically when I put the car in gear.

Can’t I have it exactly the way I want it?

I like that phrase. Except when that’s how I feel.  Which is now.  I was fine through the day, but my energy level plummeted on the walk from the T stop to the hotel, and when I got back to my hotel room, I could barely make myself leave again.  I did, though, and I planned to grab a quick light dinner somewhere and spend some time on a park bench with my book since the weather was so nice.  I managed the first part, barely, took a walk around the block in the direction of the park, and then decided this was ridiculous.  I can’t force myself to enjoy an evening in the sunshine if all I want to do is climb into bed.  So I’m back in my room, it’s just after seven, and I plan to take a bath (I’m coming up with this plan right this very second), read, and go to bed early.  I don’t have to be at work until 8 tomorrow, which means I can wait to leave the hotel until about 7:30, which means I can get up early and run outside!  In the sunshine!  In the early morning!  When it’s early!  (Which is what I like to do.)  Hopefully, I’ll have recovered from this general malaise fatigue by then.  (I looked up malaise – it’s linked to health issues more than I originally thought.  I don’t think I have any health issues.)

Why does travel take so much out of people?  I’ve never really understood that.  Maybe when you’re in the act of traveling, but why when I’m staying in one place for so many days?  What am I doing that’s so fatiguing?  (Pronounced fat-igg-you-ing.)

More Boston travelogue tomorrow, perhaps.

I’m home, but only for two days.  Almost exactly.  And I’ve spent the afternoon so far trying not to melt into a puddle of tears.  I’m SO tired, so completely worn out, that it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open.  (And, of course, I don’t want to go away again!  Not so soon, not at all…)  I made it to Wegman’s, but really only to pick up easy stuff for dinner tonight.  I need to start laundry so I’ll have clean clothes to repack for Sunday, but that sounds like too much work right now.  The dogs seemed pretty happy to see me.  Riley actually jumped up on me, front paws on my shoulders, the better to stick his nose in my face.  Apparently, I wasn’t leaning down to say hello fast enough.  Roxy, with her cute little red bandage from where the vet stuck the IV needle, has been following me around the house and settling on the floor near my feet whenever I stop.  I’d take a picture, but that would take effort.

I just watched the “Brown Betty” episode of Fringe.  There was a detective story (noir, but with a few touches of futuristic technology – cool combination), singing, and Peter and Olivia almost/kinda falling in love, all in the guise of a story told to a little girl…I think I really like Joshua Jackson.

John stayed home with Roxy today.  No seizures.  She napped the day away.  I wish I could be home.  But it’s Wednesday night already (isn’t it?  I can’t tell.), and I only have one more work day to go.

Forgive me, Internet, for quitting now.  I haven’t been sleeping well in this hotel bed (I think I hate the pillows – too squishy), I haven’t gone for a run in I don’t know how many days, and I’m really tired.

Today would have been better spent in bed.  It was POURing down rain when I came downstairs after my shower this morning, and it took everything I had not to run back upstairs.  Not that it was a bad day.  I just don’t feel like I’m having any good days lately.  And that’s SO not true, I know it isn’t, but it feels like it sometimes.

That’s WAY too depressing.  It’s on the verge of too depressing to post, but I see no reason to censor myself.  On that subject, anyway.

I think I might start an herb garden.  In a pot or a windowsill planter or something.  We bought fresh basil from the store yesterday, and it smells really good.  What herbs should I plant, though?  I need to look into this.  Tomorrow.  After I sleep.

Check out this adorable picture.  Roxy used to ask to be picked up when she was a puppy, and I miss that a little.  It’s probably just as well she got too big (and grew out of it – thank goodness.  I don’t need a 55-pound dog asking to be picked up.), or I’d carry her everywhere and she’d be fatter than ever.

Today is the last day of class (for this week).  It sort of feels like summer’s coming, like it’s the end of the school year.  Everyone’s getting a little antsy, but more relaxed at the same time, so it’s kinda fun.  And yet, it’s only the end for them.  Not so much for me.  I’m here again tomorrow, and then I start a new class next week.  Same thing, different day.  They go back to work, so I guess it’s not really all that great for them, either.  I’m trying to enjoy the day, and mostly I’m able to, but then I remember how many more times I have do it.

And then I look at adorable pictures of puppies, and I’m ready to pick back up after lunch.    (Too cutesy?  Too bad.)

Okay, okay.  I accept that what happened to me yesterday morning was a panic attack, and I’ll call the doctor in the morning.

TV, anyone?

I love the theme song for Treme (on HBO).  John and I haven’t decided if we want to keep watching it, but we had to watch the first two episodes.  Required viewing in this family.  Why?  Check out the concierge in the second episode.  She’s related to ME!  How cool is that?  The concierge in question (who Steve Zahn waved at!) is my soon-to-be-famous sister-in-law.  So, you know, kind of related to me.  Close enough.

Candy, I thought you were great.  Even though we were watching for you, we were caught by surprise when you did appear, and then there was much squealing and pausing and rewinding and rewatching.  (I’ll take credit for most, if not all, of the squealing.)  We couldn’t possibly delete the episode from our DVR, of course.  We’ll have to show it to everyone who comes over.  And we started with Jess on Saturday night.  So for the next…I don’t know how long, everyone who enters the house will have to watch Candy’s scene in Treme.    You think I’m kidding?  Just wait.

Go visit Curiosity. She’s listing her priorities for life (and making fun of Victoria’s Secret models).  Who can resist?

You know what bugs me?  (In a little way, not a big way.)  Finding a blog I like, and then realizing they don’t update every day.  And it’s not just that they don’t update every day (’cause that’s okay.  People are allowed to lead busy lives and do other things and NOT update the blog every single day.  Yes, you have my permission.), but then they don’t update every few days, and then it’s been a week, and then two months.  It’s so disappointing!  I bookmarked you because I liked you!  I liked to read you!  And then you abandoned me.  How could you?  *sob*  (Mom, I’m not talking about you, since I talk to you every day, and you tell me the things you would blog about.  I feel up to date on you.  But if I didn’t actually know you, and I found your blog some other way, then yes, I’d be talking about you.  (Was that too harsh?  I didn’t mean to be harsh.))  I have five or six blogs bookmarked that fall in this category, and since I already don’t have the time read all the blogs I bookmark (but I really want to), I may have to clear those few out.

I may have mentioned before how much I don’t like the hours I’m keeping for work.  And how I have to get up at 5am and by the time I get home (about 6:30 today), there’s barely time for me to eat dinner and say hi to John before I need to get to bed again.  And I’ve been shooting for being in bed by 9.  Hasn’t happened in several weeks, but I keep trying.  I can tell it’s getting bad when the only thought in my head when I get up in the morning is “how long before I can go back to bed” and my favorite daydream involves a nap.  Tonight is my best shot at making the 9pm goal yet.

All of that is my way of saying this is going to be short.  Two things:

1. Roxy had another seizure last night.  Still just one, no clusters, but her recovery time was back to about 45 minutes, and there was no sign of the hyper dog.  She’s fine now, and she was fine before we went back to bed.  I was half expecting this sort of thing to happen, since we are taking her off of a pretty potent medication and moving her to a new one.  Of course, the late night seizures two nights in a row aren’t helping me sleep.  I got about 5 hours last night.  But this particular item was not about me.    Roxy’s fine for now.  I’m keeping the vet updated.
2. This one is about me.  Mostly.  And I’m going to be a big dork and not at all cool about this.  You ready?  Jenny, The Bloggess herself, COMMENTED ON MY SITE!  For real!  Go look at yesterday’s post.  Of course, all of a sudden I felt this incredible pressure to be funny in my reply to her comment.  I failed miserably (I’m not funny on command), but I tried really hard.  Anyway, how cool is that?

Tomorrow is Friday.

And they don’t include working after I get home on a Friday evening for several hours.  But I promised myself I wasn’t going to talk about that.  Instead, I’ll mention that Roxy got so excited about the pieces of lamb fat she was going to get that she repeatedly walked herself into the narrow dead end between the arm of the couch and the wall.  Head first.  She doesn’t like to back up, so she’d stand there, tongue out, tail wagging, with her nose just barely over the arm, until I nudged her backwards with my hand on her chest.  Like three times.

John is in the office pretending he’s Brian May, and I’m pretending I have time to check some of my favorite sites before my eyes close.  We don’t have any plans this weekend (other than the usual light house cleaning, lawn mowing, grocery shopping, and something (I know there was something else I wanted to do, but did I write it down?  Say it with me.  No!)), so I hope to run and relax.  And relaxing had better include catching up with my favorite online people.  Also my new favorites, thanks to a recent thread at the Dooce Community and, of course, Spoke’s Blog Love series (first day here).

Before I go to bed, this is for Mom, Sandwich Stealer (not that one), Jess, and other people I could name but will not.  Today.  Just you wait.

I think the point of mentioning my priorities in the title was so I could say I still have mine, and I think they’re in the right order, but I need to work a lot harder at figuring out how to make them happen every day.  Or most days.  I feel a bit overwhelmed, and not by anything bad, but by not being able to make time for all those little things I like to do.  But I will.  I will figure it out.