the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows
The phone interview I mentioned earlier this week was postponed to today. I just got off the phone.
All I really want to say publicly about it was that I think it went well. It could be a couple weeks before I hear anything either way–let’s all cross our fingers and toes during the interim! ;>
Gabe’s got pictures of the new Penny Arcade book up. This only served to remind me that I once owned the original Penny Arcade book–not the $100 one with their signatures, but still, it was the original book! The one that will never be reprinted, because it was published by that company they ended up having legal trouble with (or so I understand).
Sean also had the first Penny Arcade t-shirt, the one that just had character art on the back and “Penny Arcade” written on the front in a handwriting-style font. There was a limited run of that, and you’ll probably never see one again because the art style was totally different back then.
So many things that were rare or irreplacable were destroyed in that stupid fire ;P
I got a call from my endocrinologist today. I’d had some bloodwork done to see how my FSH levels are, and to run some more normal tests. Well, the FSH is back up to 40, which means there is pretty much no chance it’ll ever get down to where it’s supposed to be. This isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that I’m not even worried about it. Maybe I’ve been doing a good job of preparing myself to deal with being infertile. Or maybe I’m just overwhelmed by everything else. Who knows.
What I am worried about is the rest of what she said, the part about my cholesterol being high and something being wrong with my thyroid to the point that she wants me on medication. She said that I need to have an appointment with my regular physician concerning my cholesterol as soon as possible. I’m…not actually sure what the deal is, but she’s going to mail me my lab results, which I will promptly fax to my mother.
I’ve quit taking the hormones, because I ran out of them and we were going to have me quit them anyway. If I don’t have a period in eight weeks, I’m supposed to call and tell the endocrinologist so. With my luck, I probably won’t, right?
I have been really stupid about my health since the fire. I haven’t exercised at all, and I’ve been eating like a pig. Plus, I’ve been drinking lots of sodas, including stuff with caffeine. It’s like I flushed all the hard work (well, I guess it wasn’t all that much, but it was still better than nothing) I’ve done over the past who knows how long completely down the toilet.
So, I need to rectify this situation. It is really hard to cook properly when I don’t have access to a full refrigerator and freezer or my own cookware, but you know, I just need to deal with it. And I need to hurry up and get Yama so I can start biking again. Being this unhealthy is simply unacceptable.
Eric Burns reminded me today that National Novel Writing Month is coming. (NaNoWriMo, a truncation worthy of the Japanese language!)
So. Should I do it?
I am really, really upset over losing what little I wrote about Tilya and the Mazarins. I mean, there is an infinitesimal chance that the demo guys will rake through the rubble and pluck out my hard drive, and that my writing will still be on it. But ultimately, it’s probably best to just accept that it’s lost. And the thing is, it didn’t have to be.
I was publishing the book online. It was readily available. It could have been Google-cached, or stored on the Internet Archive.
But I got skittish. I didn’t want the blog to be the “first publication” of the book, because I “might” try to get it published, and people familiar with the publishing world indicated that publishers don’t like sloppy seconds.
In other words, I wanted to protect the publishing rights for something I hadn’t even written yet.
There’s a cliche for that sort of thing, you know. It involves chickens.
If I’d left it public, I’d still have it. And you know, just because I’ve “published” it doesn’t mean a publisher won’t still be interested. There are many people who’ve been published because of their blogs.
What all this is boiling down to is: should I once again attempt a serious writing project, I will do it publicly, on a blog. Rather than bank on something that may or may not happen in the distant future, I will share my work immediately, and get feedback, and ensure that if this house burns down with all my stuff in it, at least what I’ve written will survive.
David went home on Saturday. Sean and I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 8 am and drive him back to Hartsfield-Jackson, which actually wasn’t too big a deal. Drop-offs and pick-ups at the airport are pretty easy. You follow the signs, and there’s convenient parking and a quick “no waiting” area where you can do your business and drive off. We chose the latter and were back on the road in minutes (seconds?). The main issue with the drive was…the drive. I must confess that a good deal of nappage occurred. (Hopefully Sean didn’t fall asleep while he was driving.)
The rest of the weekend has been nice and fairly relaxing. I won’t get into what Sean and I did twice on Saturday, much to our combined delight, except to say that there is physical evidence, and his mother noticed.
:>
I either have a cold, or I am allergic to something. Sean says it’s ragweed season here in beautiful Augusta, Georgia, and that may very well be what it is. All I know is that I’m stopped up, I have on-again/off-again headaches, I blow my nose every hour at least, and there’s intermittent coughing. It’s not abysmally phlegmatic, fortunately, but that may change.
This week I am putting in full time hours to do freelance/contract/what-have-you work for my former boss, Robert. I also threw together an email design for him last week. Freelance jobs are nice because you can pretty much call all the shots yourself. This project is basically data entry, and I’m actually going in to the office to do it, so it’ll be a little different, but not in a bad way. Or so I imagine.
I also have a phone interview this afternoon at 4 pm with a large company that has a base in Evans. The work involves writing, photography, and creating technical drawings. The mean salary for a person of my experience doing this work in Augusta, according to salary.com, is the same as Sean’s salary. Yee! I don’t think the job would be boring, at least not for awhile, and I definitely think it’s challenging enough to keep me busy. The things I would have to watch out for are: 1) being productive; 2) proving that I’m being productive. I didn’t spend enough time doing #2 in my last job. (Wow, that sounds like a constipation problem. Either that or it sounds like I wish I had pooped all over my last job. Hmm, I won’t deny it!)
Strangely, hundreds of strangers have not swooped in and purchased everything off our Things We Lost in the Fire Amazon Wish List. Within the first week, 9 items were purchased, and since then that number has not changed. Either I shot myself in the foot by saying “Don’t buy us stuff, we have no place to put it!” (which is technically true, but we can store things in the neighbor’s spare rooms), or everyone who was going to help out has already done so.
Believe me, I’m not trying to be ungrateful here…we have had a lot of money and gift cards and clothes and other items given to us that we would certainly not otherwise have had, and that have helped us to live relatively normally for the past several homeless weeks. I thank everyone who has helped.
But I don’t know, I guess I am just really missing all my stuff :> I have had three dreams so far about going back into the apartment and finding certain things unharmed. This morning I very unhappily remembered that my first porcelain unicorn, the only one from my collection that I decided to keep forever, is now lost. It was about an inch and a half long, pure white with light brown details and black eyes, and its horn was glued back on from where it’d broken off when I was around 5. My Uncle Steve gave it to me; he’s the one who started (and fostered) my love of unicorns. He gave me plenty of other unicorn items over the years, including stickers, but that little porcelain unicorn was always my favorite.
There’s another item I’ve been thinking wistfully about, and that’s a white mixing bowl that I always used to make brownies. It came from my mother’s ancient stand mixer. I swear that thing was made in the 50s. When my mom finally got her Kitchenaid, she got rid of the old mixer but kept the bowl…and when I moved out, the Kitchenaid and the old mixer bowl came with me, because I loved them and could use them (and because by that point my mother had invested in her Bosch industrial strength grinder/mixer thing and had no use for the Kitchenaid). Now the mixer and the old bowl are gone. And while I can replace the mixer, that bowl was pretty much one of a kind, given its age. (I take some solace in the fact that there was another white bowl, with red spots, that Mom promised me when I was a kid. I never did take it with me, so maybe it’s still in her attic. It’s not the right shape or anything, but it is filled with childhood memories, which is more the point.)
Denied these priceless treasures (there are more, of course, but I don’t have the time to get into them now), my mind has been turning to things I can replace. Why can’t I, for example, have my Kyo Kara Maoh DVDs back now? Or my other movies? Or my Japanese textbooks? And that’s what’s brought me to the fire list, and my ungrateful wondering: where are all the donations?
:>
Woo, that’s all the mental midgetry I have time for this morning. Catch all y’alls later.
Here’s a cute picture David took of me writing “I love Sean” on the beach.
As you may have surmised from the comments two posts ago, I took David to Savannah on Wednesday–almost exactly a year after my trip with Dawn and Sam. I have now been to that city three times, each time within the span of a day. Someday I’d like to go back and spend more time, with at least one night’s stay in a bed and breakfast or luxury hotel, and just explore and enjoy the sights and shopping and other experiences in relaxation instead of a hurry.
As always, there are pictures.
I’m getting the impression that Savannah is a “girly town”, because David really got bored on River Street. (Sam? Care to venture an opinion?)
Regardless, we both enjoyed visiting my favorite candy shop and sampling the praline candy. Mmm-mmm-mmm. I remembered how last year we bought a huge box of the stuff and had it all gone by the next day…but this time money was a little tight, so I didn’t buy anything.
After spending far less time than I’d expected in historic downtown Savannah, and then walking the length of River Street, David was ready to head out to try and find a beach. We drove off in the wrong direction, then turned around and miraculously found our way to the beautiful Tybee Island. After a brief stop to admire a lighthouse, we picked our way down onto the beach.
I was wearing shorts, and I’d already taken my sneakers and socks off to walk in the sand barefoot, so it wasn’t much of a stretch for me to run gleefully out into the water. My pants got thoroughly soaked. The water was warm and foamy and beautiful. You can’t help but feel as if you’re part of something when you’re standing there, rushing tide pounding your legs and sucking the sand out from under your feet, bright sun shining overhead and sky clear and stretching out forever. I wanted to swim…but unfortunately I’d worn a rather nice shirt that I didn’t want to ruin, so I had to content myself with wading.
Between jaunts, I convinced David to throw off his shoes, roll up his jeans, and do some splashing around of his own.
He too got soaked, and his jeans took quite a bit longer than my khaki shorts to dry.
I am so glad that we went to the ocean. If I ever plan my days-long excursion to Savannah, I will seriously consider staying on Tybee Island.
Good night.
Shutting up engine: engaged!
Well, I’ll be heading back to Augusta today. I don’t feel like saying “back home”, because I don’t really have a home. Not even this place–even though I feel perfectly comfortable here, I don’t live here. I don’t have a life here.
I don’t have a life anywhere anymore, it feels like.
But I’m not as depressed as I have been. Things will be better. I just need to be patient and frugal.
Today will be an interesting matter of timing. I need to visit Grandma on my way out of town, then pick David up at the Atlanta airport at 7:30. Hopefully I will time it all so David won’t have to wait. I don’t mind if I’m the one who has to wait. I can always find something to do ;>
Dad’s making me breakfast, and I promised Connor I would come see him this morning, so I’d better get my shower and start packing up.
A lot of times when I want to say something that’s important to me, one of two things happens: either I decide that I’ll do it justice later, that I just want to get it out for now; or I don’t write it at all.
Right now I want to write about my father, and how he has taken up cooking in his later life, and how he always cooks me breakfast while I’m visiting, and how today he made me a steak for dinner, and when I was finished eating it he thought I might like a baked potato, and when I was almost done with that he remembered that he had some broccoli from the garden that he could steam…and when I was finally finishing this extended dinner, he mentioned that I could eat the stuffed mushrooms in the freezer later on if I wanted a snack.
My father hasn’t always been like this. He hasn’t really cooked much at all until recently; Mom usually handled all that, and she still does. They both cook whatever they feel like: Mom will typically make something big, like a huge vat of spaghetti, or a pot of beef stew, or a roast (all of which she has made while I’ve been here, and today she was thawing chicken to fry), and Dad will get a hankering for something and make it regardless of what Mom’s cooking (like the steaks he made today).
Mom loves it when Dad decides to make breakfast, because he makes the best breakfast. Eggs over easy, toast, hash browns, and sausage or bacon. He’ll make the eggs however you want them, and he makes really good cheesy scrambled eggs, but I’ve always preferred over easy because I like to sop up the yolks with my toast. Dad remembered and made them over easy for me the other day. He’s going to make me breakfast tomorrow, too. I can’t wait.
I think my father cooks for me because he wants to share something with me. For the same reason, he likes to talk with me about his inventions. Today he took me down to the workshop to show me the method he contrived to make screws for one of his tools. The screws he’d bought ready-made cost twelve dollars apiece…now he makes the screws himself, and they each cost roughly five cents. Dad talked me through each step in the process, and what problems he’d run into and how he’d solved them. Like me, like us all, he was looking for affirmation and appreciation, and I hope I gave him enough. (I worry that I wasn’t very enthusiastic due to the fact that I was falling into a food coma.)
I love my dad. But yet again I haven’t written well enough to do my subject justice.
Today I decided to grab all the photos I can from Mom’s computer. She has copies of many of the photos (digital, at least) that I used to have. The majority of the family photos are here, and some of my other photos (from visits and such) are here too. It’s not everything I lost, but it is quite a bit of stuff.
It’s good that my mom is as nutty about pictures as I am :)
On my way here, I stopped for gas for the last time and noticed that I was at the exit for Cumberland Falls. Why not? I thought. I followed the signs away from I-75, and drove for a long time on twisting mountain roads. Eventually I came to a beautiful stone overlook, so I stopped to get some pictures.
After that, I went on. By the time I finally got to the falls, I was twelve miles away from I-75. I drove past various entrances to restaurants and waterfront homes until finally I came to the park.
First I wandered around the area above the falls, looking at the rocky bed, the surrounding forest, and the beautiful bridge over the water.
Soon I reached a sign that said “DO NOT GO BEYOND THIS POINT”, so I headed off to the right and passed through between the gift shop and the snack bar to the main park area.
And finally, there was the first falls viewing site:
I moved along from there and found several other great angles.
Someday I’ll be as famous as James Archambault ;>
After a little more exploring, I was hot and tired and ready to drive the last 100 miles. I bought myself a souvenir, one of those neat paper storage boxes. My cousin Gabrielle gave me two hat boxes when I was in the hospital (which, of course, were destroyed in the fire); this box is made of the same kind of stuff, except it’s a cube. It’s beige with blue flowers. I also bought some homemade fudge. Then I headed home, fully satisfied with my little detour.
Mom’s trying to get Logan to sing the Bob the Builder song, which goes something like
Can we fix it?
Yes we can!
So she said, “Logan! Can we fix it?”
Logan turned around in the highchair, beamed at her, and said, “Sure!”
I didn’t do much for most of Monday. After I got up I sat around and watched TV for awhile, eventually deciding to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I also ate a lot: cereal, more cereal, Pop Tarts, and a bagel with cream cheese. I was in a bad mood when Sean got home around 3:30, so once Chamber of Secrets was over I left the house to go to the Japanese grocery store.
Which ended up being closed.
So I tried to find a new way home, and ended up on Gordon Highway heading downtown. So I went to the Greeneway and took some pictures.
They put a new fence up around the trail closest to the golf course and the Hammond’s Ferry entrance. Also, it is really starting to look like fall, despite the flowers.
It’s a lot longer when you don’t have a bike and have to walk. It was also pretty hot. I didn’t make it very far before I turned around and left.
After that I went to Outspokin’ to look for a new bike, but they were closed too. (Judging from the parking, everyone was out on a ride.)
Finally I headed back towards Martinez. I stopped at Payless to look for some nice boots, but they didn’t have anything I liked. So I ended up returning home empty-handed, save for the pictures.
I guess I was pouting too much, because Cheryl gave me a lecture about depression, and wouldn’t leave me alone about it. She did say that I needed to go see my mom, but I already knew that.
I was more than happy to get up early on Tuesday, pack, and run away to Kentucky.