Category: general

I have a bone density exam scheduled for Monday. The endocrinologist’s office called today; she wants me to have an ultrasound and some bloodwork in addition to that. I’m guessing that either the medical history I’ve had forwarded to her was inconclusive, or she is looking for a miracle, something the other doctors didn’t see, in these next tests.

Here’s hoping.

In other news, since I’ve been taking 1500 mg of calcium every day, my back has been feeling a lot better. Fancy that.

So apparently I’ve decided that this is a livejournal. I’ve been bitching and moaning and moping and posting “woe is me” so much that I’m sure all of you are about to hurl all over your monitors, if you haven’t done so already.

Sorry about that.

I have this tendency to want to wait for things to happen before doing other things. My rationale is that I don’t want to waste the time and energy working on a schedule if I just have to revise it later.

I’m coming to realize that that shit ain’t gonna fly.

Rather than waiting for my life to suddenly become perfect before I create routines for myself, I’m just going to go ahead and create some fucking routines.

Since I don’t feel like doing a workout at 5 am anymore, I’ll just do it after work for now. If and when I get a new job, I may go back to doing it beforehand.

Since I am here all freaking day, I have no excuse not to have an evening routine that includes making dinner, cleaning up dinner, running the dishwasher, and laying out the next day’s clothes. I’ve actually been fairly good about keeping the kitchen tidy and laying out my clothes, but the dinner part needs some serious work. I need to go back to the days when I knew what was for dinner when I got up in the morning.

Establishing routines will free me of guilt during my lounge-around times, and hopefully unclutter my mind so I can think about other things.

I’ll start small. Workout routine, dinner/before bed routine. Eventually I may add dusting, since that’s something I hardly ever do, and it sorely needs to be done. But I don’t want to overwhelm myself, like I always do. Babysteps ;P

One thing is definite. I need to go to the store. We are almost out of toilet paper!

I just want my moods to be balanced. I don’t know if they ever were before, but even if they weren’t I don’t think they were quite this bad.

Yesterday I felt slightly ill and I went to lie down. My subsequent nap was seemingly filled with horrible dreams, and between the dreams I tried my hardest to wake up. It didn’t work. I would think, “Okay, I’m sitting up now and opening my eyes,” and it wouldn’t happen. I would instead go into another dream. It was only after what seemed like hours of this that the noise of lawnmowers outside pulled me through the haze. I blundered awake, stumbled to the bathroom, and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I felt lost.

Later, Sean and I were discussing the car–it will cost a lot to fix. In truth, he was venting about the car, but I was I guess too vulnerable to be able to let him vent to me, so I was quiet for a long time, and everything he said made me feel unhappy and desperately angry.

A few hours later in the chat, strangely, someone mentioned an in-joke from a couple weeks ago, and I could not stop laughing, literally. I laughed so hard I cried. I felt myself about to go over the edge crying. I managed to stop, but at the same time it felt so good I just wanted to run off to bed and sob until I was too tired to sob anymore.

My moods have just been wonky lately.

Right now I just feel like crap, like I don’t have a purpose, like I’m more of a burden than an asset to everything I’m a part of. Part of it is my car, and the huge expense it will be to fix it. Part of it is waiting in job limbo, not hearing anything, wondering if they decided they hate me or what. Part of it is the AMRN, which I have quasi-rejoined, but in which I still feel like an outsider. There are new cliques, and I’m left out of them…but if I try to bring in more characters, I don’t think it will go right. I feel like things will happen that I will find boring, and then I’ll quit posting and get overwhelmed and quit again. So Mindy’s all I’ve got for now, but she doesn’t really fit in. I feel like I’ve basically got nothing, that there was no point in trying to come back at all.

Apparently Californians need a law to keep them from having sex with dead bodies. But they just can’t beat Zambians.

[Salt Lake City’s] airport board recently proposed a change in the part of the aviation code that said small aircraft must maintain an altitude of more than 2,000 feet while flying over Salt Lake City. For years, Santa Claus and his reindeer were granted an exception — but no more.

Maybe they’re afraid of terrorists wearing bright red suits…;P

O_O;;;;

So I guess the exhaust broke in half…

N.Korea blast probably not nuclear

Atomic Activity in North Korea Raises U.S. Concerns

Powell Says N. Korea Blast Not Nuclear

Schoolgirl uses judo skills to throw perverted postman

I wonder if any sports reporters were coincidentally in the area in time to get a panty shot.

I’ve been watching the Oppai sub of Chou Kuse ni Narisou–just finished episode 6, and I have 10 more to watch–and I must say, it is teh funnay. It spoofs on both shoujo and martial arts anime. The main character, Nagisa, is a girl who is heir to a failing judo dojo. She gets scouted by some record producers who think she should be an idol singer, and so she goes along with it so she can go to the “city” with them and find some students for the dojo.

However, the idol life is trying, and so she decides to attend junior high school as a boy so she can enjoy a “normal” life. Of course, her school, run by gangs of bullies, is far from your typical anime Japanese school. The teachers command zero respect, and are typically just standing in the classroom talking to themselves. (Why the students even bother to show up is a good question; maybe they do it for laughs. Nagisa and her gang cut school on numerous occasions when they’ve found something better to do.)

One of the first things to happen was Nagisa proving she could kick everyone else’s ass, so while Tsunoda is still technically the “boss” of the gang, Nagisa is the true muscle and will get her way when she wants to. The second thing was Nagisa falling for the leader of a rival school’s gang. The love affair was complicated by the fact that he was in love with Nagisa’s idol alter-ego…but he figured out rather quickly that boy-Nagisa and idol-Nagisa were one and the same. (None of this dallying for long, torturous episodes!) Now the biggest complications to their love are the disapproval of their fathers–who both run competing dojos–and the bizarre interruptions of a woman called Momoko, who, with her sidekick Kumioka, perform bizarre skits in the middle of an episode for no particular reason. (She claims she is the greatest idol ever, and in keeping with such, stages these performances.)

It was the skit in episode 6 that inspired me to write. As Nagisa’s new friend Aoi-chan is about to be attacked by ninja from her old school, Hanazono, she protests, “I’m just a passerby!”

Then, Momoko shows up:

“There is only Death for escapees,” she says. “You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

Aoi has enough time to react with a “holy shit, how did you know I was an escapee?” face before Momoko suddenly yells 「そこだ！」 and start hurling shuriken in the opposite direction.

Kamioka appears from behind a cloth he’s been using to camoflage himself on a rock wall, and deflects the shuriken with his sword.

“Master,” he acknowledges Momoko, crouching to prepare for her attack.

“Kamioka,” Momoko responds. “I expected that this day would come.”

She begins spinning a bolo over her head. “This is war!” she shouts, and hurls it at Kamioka.

He jumps…

…and is caught.

At this point he yells something that isn’t translated. I can’t quite make it out, but the last part sounds like no hengen, and when he drops to the ground…

…it’s not him anymore. He’s used the replacement technique!

Momoko gloats, “I’ve added another one, Kamioka,” which is her standard phrase upon completion of a cool scene. “It’s time to begin your lesson.” Then, she…

…blows fire at Kamioka’s discarded camoflage…

…and he pops out from under it, with his pants on fire.

She then proceeds to chase him around, shooting fire at him and shrieking and laughing about the “lessons”.

This anime came out in 1994 (two years after Sailor Moon–I’d spotted a Sailor Moon joke in an earlier episode, and Nagisa’s love interest looks a lot like Mamoru, but this is a total digression). So, apparently, these ninja techniques, as seen in Naruto, have been part of the ninja culture for many years. I found this really interesting.

I’m no connoisseur of martial arts anime/TV, but I had suspected that the techniques in Naruto weren’t created by Kishimoto Masashi. It’s not that he isn’t a great writer, but that there is a trend in Japanese entertainment to build on past works, to make references to predecessors, etc. They not only accept that nothing is completely original, but they thrive on the fact that there is such a wealth of knowledge to work with. I believe something similar happens in the west as far as science fiction and fantasy novels go. Certain ideas get used so often that they become staples of the genre. I also believe that the Harry Potter series is so successful partly because the robust world of the books is based on centuries of real history and legend.

In any case, this was a very interesting step on my quest to learn more about Japanese culture.

Chou Kuse ni Narisou is hilarious, and I recommend it to all :)

I get these crushes on girls. Girls I find beautiful. They could be fantastic writers, they could be visually appealing to me, they could be witty and clever, they could exude “sexy” no matter what they do…whatever, I get to a point where I fixate on them, where my only wish is to make them laugh, or get their attention, or do something to win their approval. Where my only thought is how wonderful they are and how I would like to touch them, to taste them, to be with them in more than just a teasing flirtatious way. To be important to them.

To have them want me the way I want them.

It is a horrible feeling, ultimately, because though I’m giddy at the outset, giddy with lust and with the excitement of the “chase”, I always get to a point where I know there is nothing further for me. They don’t really like me or want me; it’s just a game. For whatever reason–I’m a married woman, they’re only bi-curious, they’re just big flirts–they haven’t let themselves fall in like I have. I always know this point is coming…but I always plunge in anyway, like I think that this time will somehow be different.

And then when I get there I just feel horrible about myself. It’s just like any rejection. I start to think that I’m fat and ugly and not worthy of them anyway. I lecture myself for getting my hopes up. I feel like trash.

It’s a fucking cycle of despair, and I hate it.

At about 5:30 last night, I was getting a headache from looking at the computer screen–it happens. So I decided to go do something else…except that I had no idea what that would be. Reading or watching TV would be pretty much the same as squinting at a monitor, I decided. So I lay down in bed and put this little fragrance bag thing my cousin gave me over my eyes, to force them to close and relax.

It took awhile for me to relax, but I finally did, sometime after Sean came home. I napped for a little while, woke up, put the bag thing on the bedside table, curled up under the covers, and went back to sleep.

I slept until Sean came to bed, and then I slept until I had to go to the bathroom, and then I slept until I had to go to the bathroom again (where, exactly, am I keeping all this urine?), and then I woke up at around 7:30, thought “This would be a good time to get up,” and promptly slept again until 9.

So that’s like fifteen hours or sleep or something.

So, to deal with stress, we have to come to terms with the fact that it is unavoidable, look on it as a challenge, take more control, and make a difference in the world around us.

I can live with that. (I’ve already decided that there is going to be a golf course named after me, and maybe a few buildings…)

Here is a fabulous example of people who should not have children. I sincerely hope they don’t. But, as Tycho said today,

When he [Gabe] told me this pregnancy thing was for real, triumphantly declaring that he “makes boys,” I told him precisely what I thought – that any idiot is capable of this feat, and that – in actual point of fact – idiots engage in this kind of thing more than anyone else, which is why it can be so hard to get a decent cappuccino.