April 2005 Archives

Why, oh why, did I not buy a drill YEARS ago?

I just installed the curtain rods in my new bedroom in like, less than 10 minutes. It took longer to put the curtains on the damn rods than to install the hardware.

Pardon me while I have a Tim Allen moment. HuuHuuHahahuuhahahahaha.

I'm still sick. But I think I'm getting better. I don't want to go on the cart. I'm still stuffy and coughing, but the intensity seems to be lessing. I think I slept most of the night last night (wait, did I just type that??) - no waking up with coughing fits or feverish sweats.

I'm really feeling the need to get moving on the unpacking. There are things that I need to find (like my new health insurance numbers) because I have to use them. E and I are going to Vegas this weekend. And while I'm looking forward to the time with him, and the chance to play, I also feel like it's just going to get me deeper into the hole of not unpacking. Oh well.

I miss my kitties. Since we moved they haven't been sleeping with me like they used to. I don't know if it's because I've been sick and I wake them up too much with my coughing. When I moved to Ann Arbor Indigo became complete aloof to me and Riley was a complete mama's boy. When I moved to Pleasanton, Riley decided he could be independent and Indi really warmed up to me. Cats are so strange. I hope Smudge and Freesia don't go through a personality change. I liked having them surround me at night. I'm sorry that I'll be leaving them alone in the new place this weekend. But somehow I think they would enjoy Vegas even less.

I'm still sick.

My house is filled with boxes. I found my plates last night but still don't have glasses or silverware. I have no idea where my laundry detergent is.

The cats have just started speaking to me again. The fish are still pouting.

I left my house at 8:40 this morning and arrived at the office at 9:30.

Life is good.

I feel like I have lived a lifetime in the past week. I'll start with the recent first.

I'm sick. As in the lining of my throat is rubbed with sandpaper every time I swallow and the front of my face feels like it's been hit with a 2x4. Common head colds have no business making one so miserable. The sore throat started yesterday morning when I woke up in...

New Brunswick! That's right - my job only sends me to the hippest, most happening places. Actually, it was a really good client visit. We did some really good work and every seems to feel good about it. It's amazing how much meeting someone face-to-face changes your relationship and perception of them. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to see all that is St. John. But it was nice to be back in a part of the country that is still waking up to spring. The weather was warm and sunny - I brought my jacket, but was actually too warm to wear it. And I even found some Green Aero Bars - yum!

Tomorrow the moving process begins. I have to make sure that they don't pack away all my Kleenex on me. I had grand visions of getting at least part of my house packed and boxed up before the movers came. The most I was able to manage was one Jack Daniel's box of booze. Oh well. All it means is that it will cost me more. It's just money, right? Today was my last BART ride to Pleasanton. That SO rocks.

I participated in a sleep study last Wednesday at the Stanford Sleep Clinic in Fremont. You can see photos here. It seems like a lifetime ago now. It was a very strange experience, not at all what I expected. True to form, I didn't sleep well while I was there, so I'm hoping that they got good data. It will take a number of weeks until I have the results though. I just hope I don't have sleep apnea, because if I do I'll have to use a CPAP machine. And, well, I just don't know if I can do that. I don't see how I could respect myself in the morning.

Other than that, there's not much to report. Just lots of being tired. Lots of emotional upset (I'll be so glad when the stress of the move is over). I'm debating how much packing and organizing I should do tonight, or if I should just go to bed. I have a strong feeling that bed will win out. I do feel pretty miserable.

Man, I don't know what my problem is today. I should have warning signs tattooed on my forehead, telling people to just stay away. I'm in a foul, foul mood, and I don't know why. I'm walking around spitting nails. Can't blame it on the monthly cycle. Can't blame it on lack of sleep (been takin' my Ambien, so I've been sleeping from 9-7 pretty much for the past 6 nights).

*sigh*

It's official. My iPod is dead. The technical description the guy at the Genius Bar used was "the hard drive go a-chunka-chunka-chunk." Luckily it was still under warrenty, so they replaced it for free. Yay. So I have portable music again.

This weekend has been pretty quiet. I feel that all I've done is sleep. Which is good, since after Wednesday night I especially needed it. But it also means that I've spent a majority of the weekend in that half-asleep, nap-drunk type of feeling. The kind of feeling where your brain feels wrapped in gauze, and you know people are talking to you but for the love of God, you have no idea what they are saying. Unfortunately, that isn't nearly as fun as wandering around being drunk-drunk. Though the tummy aches are similar.

I had a really great insight into ways that I could organize the facets of my client's product vocabulary that I am working on for work. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I was awake or asleep when the inspiration hit me. I didn't take any notes. And I can't remember the details now - just the fact that I had it all figured out. *sigh* Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Ugh. Can I get a do-over on today? I didn't sleep last night. I know, I know, that's not news. Can't I write about anything else? It was another really, really bad night. Luckily I don't have really bad nights too often (anymore). But it just means that when I do have them, I feel that much worse for the wear. (God, how did I survive when attacks like this were nightly?)

I was up every hour or so from about 10 until 2 and then was pretty much wide awake until 5:30 or so. But it wasn't just lying in bed awake. All kinds of fears and insecurities and feelings from the depths of The Dark Place surrounded me. I was battling demons at 4 am. This morning I got hit with the after effects. That lovely combination of feeling physically ill from the less than 3 hours of sleep and with complete and utter emotional wipeout. Not fun.

I went and saw the sleep specialist today. She was really nice. I get to go back next week and do a sleep-over there. Get to be hooked up to all kinds of electrodes and such. I hope they let me take pictures. Maybe they will finally have some insight into what is wrong with me. I think four+ years of insomnia is enough.

I was just so completely wasted today. I feel like I spent all day driving on 680, back and forth to the doctor. I had a client call this morning, and I hope to God that I took good notes, because at this point I really don't remember much of it. I wasn't able to work on anything that I was planning on working on - I couldn't focus, couldn't think - beyond the pain that I was/am in.

It's finally 8. Finally dark. I think I'm going to crawl into bed. Ambien where are you? Maybe if I'm lucky tomorrow will be Thursday again and I can get done what I need to get done.

I don't feel that I do that much, or have that interesting of a life. But somehow I always seem to fill the days and have things left over that still need to get done. Anyway... here's some stuff that I've been up to and dealing with lately.

My iPod is sick. It freezes on me and skips songs that I know have been ripped correctly. The skipping and freezing now happens so often that it is unusable. Grumble. I went to the Apple iPod support site (which isn't as helpful as one would hope) and got some information. I tried resetting the thing, which helped last night. But alas, this morning it was freezing and skipping again. I reset it again on the train and got the folder icon with the little exclamation point, again. Looks like I need to "restore" it, which essentially means reformatting the little hard drive and then reloading all my songs back onto it. Grrr.

Yesterday was the Giant's opening game. I've already decided that the baseball season is too long. It's not that I have anything against the game, or its fans (especially since I never have to watch another game EVER). It's that the whole neighborhood gets overrun with cars, the parking lots jack up their already high prices (the $8 lot was charging $45. FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS!), and the coffee shops and whatnot are filled with folks who don't know the system and just stand in the doorways. Gah. Hopefully night games won't be as disruptive.

The brakes on my car are squeaking again. Well, maybe it's more of a squeal. They don't make noise everytime I touch the break petal, but almost. I finally dropped the car off at the repair shop this morning, before taking BART. I'm going to miss that garage. They are so nice there and they do good work. I hope I can find another place that I trust as much in Berkeley.

The schedule at work as picked up a bit. This is good, as I felt that I was just kind of floating, slowly making my way to the deadlines. So it feels good to have more pressure at my back, having concrete goals to shoot for. But I also have that feeling of being behind the pack and needing to run uphill to catch up. Which is strange because I'm not behind on anything. And only I am putting that pressure on myself. But it's an almost physical feeling of something breathing down my neck, the need to be on my toes at all times, and to keep working. Hrm. I need to work on that. To keep it under control. There's no point in burning the midnight oil except when needed. And really, it isn't that bad. I certainly have felt more stressed at jobs before. It's more I'm recognizing the beginnings of those feelings and want to nip it in the bud (and see how many cliches I can get into one post).

I picked up the keys to the new apartment on Sunday. Yay! E and I measured all the rooms and I also had measured my furniture before hand, so we worked on what I can put where. It looks like my kitchen table is indeed too big for the kitchen. And I'm not quite sure where to put the TV shelf. But other than that most tihngs should fit okay.

I just ordered more RAM for my PowerBook, so I'll be up to 1.25 GB of memory. I did this so I can run VirtualPC on my Mac. This means I'll be able to run Visio when needed as well as our new thesaurus contruction software (I just got us a copy of MultiTes). We'll see how it goes. I remember how painful VirtualPC was back on OS 8. But it sounds like as long as I'm not running Photoshop on it I'll be okay.

Okay... enough time spent posting. Back to the moly mines.

It's a nice day today. I'm having trouble deciding what I should do next though. I had a photography class at the community college this morning. I just finished lunch. I'm torn between doing chores, playing, and taking a nap. Decisions, decisions.

Wow. I always knew I had a natural wave in my hair. But tonight I got my hairs cut, and I told Mary, my stylist, to put in some layers to, you know, bring out some of the the curl. Boy did it ever. She put in some curl holding product and used a difuser on the hair dryer and WOW. While I can't say that it looks like I have a perm, it sure does look like I spent some time in rollers.

That's pretty cool. Not that I'll ever be able to get it to look like this on my own. I hope the cats appreciate me gettin' all dolled up for them.

- waking up at 5 am and realizing that you don't have to get up for another 2.5 hours.

- spending the snooze time between the alarm going off snuggling with your kitten. Especially when he puts his soft paws on your cheeks.

- having time to eat breakfast AND wash your hair in the shower.

- hitting no traffic backup at the toll plaza.

- no metering lights at the Bay Bridge.

- finding a parking space on the street, with no time limits, right around the corner from work.

- finally unloading the giant sticky-note pads that you've been carrying around in the trunk of your car since the IA Retreat in October.

It's Friday. It's a good day.