I am pretty bummed out today. Last night I had bad cramps that didn't go away even after 2 ibuprofen and a heating pad against my belly. And it's nowhere near my period, so basically the endo is back. I'm getting an ultrasound this Friday morning to find out if there's a "mass" as the doctor said. I'm going to see the doc who did my surgery, even though she has a terrible bedside manner, like really horrible, but she has seen and moved around my insides with her own eyes (well, using a tiny camera) so I can't give that up. I feel almost post-traumatic stress-ful about that surgery I had in March, and now I feel just as bad as I did before I had it. So, I am pretty bummed, as I said. The doctor (not my usual one) I talked to today brought up trying Lupron, which is by far the scariest sounding, worst reviewed drug I've ever seen. It basically puts your body through menopause, which has the side effect of starving the endo of the hormones that make it react. People on Lupron get hot flashes and night sweats, they get migraines, nausea, weight gain, facial hair, vaginal dryness, loss of memory... It makes me think maybe I can handle the pain and nausea and bloating I'm dealing with now.

Sorry to be all sad and shit. On a lighter note, Bare-Naked Granola is really, really delicious. It is almost worth the $5 a bag they sell it for.

I woke up to a familiar song playing on NPR. Miriam Makeba, the singer of Pata Pata had died. I posted this comment on the appropriate post on Metafilter:

Powell House, the Quaker retreat center whose weekend youth programs generally kept me from going crazy as a teenager, has a very close relationship with Pata Pata. During my teen years in the late 80s, a 45 of Pata Pata hung on a nail next to the record player. It was played every Friday night, and there was a dance similar to the electric slide (but with more funky chicken) that everyone would do, the older kids teaching the younger ones. After being played (and dancing to it) at regular speed, we'd do it again all fast and crazy at 78, and if we were really feeling it that night, we'd play it slowly at 33 which allowed us time to add extra flourishes to the dance moves. The Pata Pata dance was created before I got there and I assume it still lives on today. Hearing it still makes me want to jump up out of my chair and dance goofily around the room.

As part of my duties as chairwoman of that association I got railroaded into leading, I must take care of (or oversee the taking care of) a large pavilion on the grounds of my neighborhood. Attached to the outside of this building is a very large wooden cross. This cross is illuminated by a spotlight every night. Today I went inside of the little room that forms the back stage of the building and I found the very old-fashioned timer that turns the cross light on and off. It was still on summer-time, so I unscrewed the little tabs and tightened them at the correct hours. But now it is night, and the cross is not on. Clearly I did something wrong.

It is possible I will be relieved of my chairwomanly duties without having to actually try to sabotage myself. How about that.

Actually, I know most of the people whose homes get a nice view of the glowing cross, and I don't think any of them would mind if it was never lit again, or (even) if the cross was removed altogether. I would definitely get in trouble for allowing such a thing as chairwoman, though. There are still many older people who remember my neighborhood as the Christian camp it used to be, where all of their Christian friends lived and hung out together all summer long. Taking this big symbol of the past out of this place, that's already been repopulated with Jews and gay people and atheists, would break their hearts. And I just can't do it.

Right now CJ is sitting behind me, playing our video game in which we kill orcs and goblins and shit. I can't play, of course, because my arm is still feeling bad, so it's kind of like being grounded the night of a big party. Except sneaking out and going to play with him would only make my arm hurt a lot, so. I recently won a free raffle at work for a Halo board game -- that's right, a cardboard and plastic-playing-pieces version of the super best-selling video game. I was just looking through it before I started writing this, and I think playing it will just make me feel sad. Maybe not, but I wouldn't know, since CJ won't stop playing his video game in order to try it out with me. (I am writing this in order for him to feel guilty later. Don't tell him!)

Today I went to the bead store to get more wire. While I was there a flock of ladies came in and loudly oohed and aahed at everything they saw. It reminded me of the time a couple of weeks ago when two middle-aged couples came in to Faces and tried on wigs, which made them laugh so loudly and so crazily that I thought there was a danger they might wet themselves. I like a wig as much as the next person, but they don't get more than a chuckle out of me. These people were laughing as though seeing their husband wearing a fake afro was the most clever and hilarious thing ever. Maybe my comedic standards are too high?

I have some good excuses for not posting today, but I won't bore you with them. (Nothing bad, just busy away-from-computer times.) I should start writing some posts in advance so I can just drop 'em in at times like these. Ah well. Enjoy your Friday rocking!

I'm squeaking in right under the wire here. I just got back from work-->dinner-->trivia, so I haven't had time to blog. But here I am! We didn't win or even come close to winning at trivia tonight, but I did remember what animal is on a caduceus, plus I identified a nautilus from a photo of one. Also, that the much-parodied "You're the Best Around!" training-montage song was originally in Karate Kid. So it was a personal victory, for me.

So, yeah. Whew! Our guy won. I'm pretty freaking happy about it. Last night I ended up at an election results watching party at a local bar, which was the official spot for the area's Obama campaign headquarters. I had been thinking of just staying home, but my neighbor Kandy talked me in to going out with her, and I dragged CJ along with me. When we showed up at around 8:30, it was so packed that there was a line to get in. Eventually we made our way to the bar, and some pints of Hop Obama beer, and we even scored a barstool to take turns sitting in. The bar erupted in cheers and applause every time they called a state for Obama. During one of those times, this photo was taken for the local paper:



Kandy's the grey-haired bespectacled woman two people to the left of me. Just in case you can't see me well enough, here's a close-up of my lovely mug, very unflatteringly captured in mid-"wow!" (or maybe "awesome!" or "woo!"):



And the best of all is CJ's, which I'm trying to find a funny way to describe, but I'll let the picture do the talking:




It was wicked fun to be with such a jubilant crowd. We were chatting with everyone that happened to be nearby, like the older dude next to me who went to Kansas State, and the baby-faced grad student from France (studying political science, of course). I ran into a bunch of people I knew, like Kshama (sitting next to me in the pic, and I'm sure I'm spelling her name wrong), the WRSI folks (Jaz, Bill, and Scott), and Philip and Flora. We stayed until after Obama's speech, and as we walked through town to our car people were skipping around, yelling and hooting, people in cars were honking their horns, and a church was ringing its bells. Today I've come back down to Earth somewhat -- I'm really saddened by prop 8 passing in California -- but I am still feeling really optimistic and excited to see what the next four years will bring. Yes!

Fuck. YES.

It is not yet On the Other Side, but I did find a photo of me as the lady who can't wait for Christmas:



Courtesy of Henning at the good ol' Rockumentary. It is both good and bad that you can't really get the full effect of the pants.

I'm about to go to a bar/restaurant place that's hosting a results viewing party for the local Obama campaign chapter thing, though I did not volunteer with them at all. I am going with my friend and neighbor who DID volunteer, so maybe that's enough? I did vote...

Tomorrow! Tomorrow is Election Day! When I will be drinking and crying no matter what the results are, though for different reasons! I can't wait until this long national nightmare is over. I can't wait to return to my little bubble, where I don't have to listen to the kinds of people who ignore mountains of actual evidence in order to believe incredible, outrageous stories that fortify their own prejudices and beliefs. You know, the kinds of people who love Sarah Palin. I can go back to pretending that, while there might be people like that out there, there are only a few, and those few are considered harmless crackpots in their communities. After tomorrow I won't have to hear assholes on the radio calling me unamerican because I believe in national health care and taxing the wealthy. (Sure, people will still be saying that, but it will be in easily-avoided pockets of the internet.

And for the first election of my lifetime, I want one particular candidate to win SO BAD. I've always wanted my guy to win, sure, but this time I actually really, really want my guy to win. As in, I'm excited to see where he'll take the country. I don't even want to talk about it because last time (2004) was such a disillusioning heartbreak, and back then I didn't care even half as much as I do now. I can't wait to vote. I wish it were tomorrow night already. Please vote tomorrow; our state is a lock for Obama, but the ballot questions are still a toss up. (Just follow my handy guide: 1. No, 2. Yes, 3. Yes. You're welcome.)

See you on the other side.

So, yes. We're planning a trip to Belize. Why Belize? We were trying to think of an interesting and warm place to go this winter (since Hawaii rocked so hard last year), and I found a website of unusual hotels. I was hoping I'd find some awesome treehouse inn or something, and I came across the Parrot Nest Lodge. It was cheap, and in the jungle, so I looked up "Belize" online and saw that the country has cool, huge Mayan temples in the jungle and nice snorkel action on the shore. Many, many hours of research later, we've kind of decided to stay at a slightly better hotel. But there will definitely be a jungle portion of the trip, then a beach portion. I have never been somewhere so uncivilized, and I can't wait for the excitement, the iguanas and river otters and howler monkeys and manta rays, but I am also petrified of picking up some debilitating parasite that will make me go blind or just ruin my health for the rest of my life. In preparation, I have done something I never thought I'd do: I purchased convertable pants. (I'm so ashamed.) Hopefully, they will keep the scorpions from biting me on the shins, and the zwip-zwop sound the nylon fabric makes as I walk will scare away the jaguars. I also bought a crazy shirt that has both sunblocking properties and confusingly-located security pockets directly over the boobs. In short, I will look kind of dweeby.

I realize that I spent a lot of the last post talking about bad-looking pants and other clothing, and I promise that I will be branching out on my post topics in the future.

Hey, it's November! Perhaps I'll try to do the ol' NaBloPoMo or whatever it is. Post a day for the month of November. And they have to be real posts, not Twitter-ish short ones. Let's just see how it goes.

Halloween is over, and I'm going through post-holiday syndrome, where I can't stop looking for things I could use for it even though the holiday is done and my costume is half-disassembled. This year I was A Middle-Aged Woman Who Cannot Wait For Christmas. I had found an excellently tacky Christmas sweater and extremely cringe-worthy Mom jeans at the Salvation Army -- seriously, two different people said, "please never wear those pants again" -- and I borrowed a Santa hat from the prop closet at work. I also had a small strand of battery-operated mini-lights, so I turned those into a necklace. I baked Christmas cookies too, for a prop. It went over well at the show I went to, and I won a set of four classic mini game pens. I only hope my cookies weren't what pushed that drunk girl over the edge and into Barftown, USA.

The day before was Halloween at work, where all of the parents in the office are invited to bring their kids in to do some cubicle-to-cubicle trick or treating. Workers choose whether or not to participate, and if they do, they get a sign and a basket of candy. Since I work with a bunch of bookish nerds, a lot of them dress up for the day -- usually not in full costume, but they'll put on a crazy hat or a wig. I still have my bird costume from 2 years ago, which is essentially just a hoodie with felt fabric-glued onto it, so I decided to wear that. And I wanted to do something to my cubicle, too. I considered finding four big branches and duct-taping them to the corners so I could have a little mini-forest, but that seemed too hard. There happened to be a never-used, still-flat cardboard box nearby my cube, so I stayed late Weds. night and made it into this:



It's a birdhouse! A birdhouse with the added bonus of acting as a door to my cubicle! I got a lot of envious comments from my coworkers, lemme tell ya. It slides to the side to open it, but whenever a person came to my desk to talk to me, they'd just lean over and talk through the hole. In the photo I'm kneeling, which I did throughout the trick or treat thing, and I actually have bruises on my knees now. Corporate-strength berber carpeting is no joke.

I wrote down the costumes the office kids were wearing, just for anthropological interest:
Apollo (the mythological figure)
cowboy
pink bunny
bee
Tinker Bell
dinosaur (2)
classic ghost (2)
Ariel (the little mermaid)
cat
dead bride
headless football player
an "oxymoron" (a dunce cap with ox horns)
crazy clown
Batman (with fancy mechanical wings)
A Bionicle (?)
2 devils
2 Transformers (Optimus Prime and Bumblebee)
turtle
farmer
baby on back of old man
A family with mom: daisy, dad: beekeeper, baby: bee
two renaissance ladies
angel
tiny lion
Lightning McQueen
"girl from the 80s"
skeleton head
candy corn witch
forest fairy girl
Hannah Montana (I assume)
Sponge Bob Squarepants (hand-painted cardboard box)
vampire
gypsy woman
lady bug
Statue of Liberty (a 3-year-old boy)

In other news, we bought tickets to go to Belize in early February. "Fuck the economy," we said, knowing deep in our hearts that my magazine will probably fold before then. (Luckily, there are always going to be crazy people for CJ work with.) More about that later.

Yes I need to post, I want to post. Halloween is taking up my creative energy at the moment. I stayed late at work today in order to turn the entrance to my cubicle into a birdhouse, so I can wear my old bird costume to work tomorrow (yes, Halloween is Friday, but our "Bring your kids for trick or treating day" is tomorrow). Anyway, more later, gators.

Over the weekend someone threw a slice of pizza (or maybe a slice of pizza that had been balled up) onto the big window next to mine. If I raise my eyes above my computer screen I can see the big greasy, saucy, chunky 'splat' and the wide swath that slid downward. Right now it's all extra bright and shiny in the sunlight. People are jerks.

Last night CJ's cat, Voo, woke us up a couple of times, meowing. He's really been ramping up the "talking" lately. CJ has been trying to modify his behavior by spraying him with water every time he meows, but usually the cat meows, CJ jumps up from wherever he is, runs to the spray bottle, runs after the cat, and once he's cornered the cat, sprays him. So I am not at all sure the cat is making the connection. Cats are jerks.

[I'm trying to come up with a short anecdote here that I can end with "I'm a jerk," but I can't think of anything, even though I know I am sometimes jerk-like. Oh wait, here's something.] Parts of my garden are still alive (barely), and when I went to visit it on Saturday, I had two giant zucchinis. So yesterday I made 2 loaves of zucchini bread (just one of my zucchini provided more than the 3 cups of grated stuff the recipe needed) with currants and walnuts. I put half the batter in one of the loaf pans, and mixed chocolate chips in the rest before pouring it into the second pan. There was some leftover chocolate-chippy batter int he bowl, so I poured that atop the first loaf. Sure, some weeks ago CJ had expressed some mild disgust at the idea of putting chocolate into a zucchini bread, but I assumed his reaction was due to the brainwashing he received as a child from his dentist father. I knew he'd come around and revel in the unexpected chocolatey goodness mixed with the currants and walnuts. But, after I told him what I had done, he was crestfallen. It turns out that he just doesn't like chocolate chips in things like muffins and scones and stuff. I told him this was more of a cake, but I don't think I convinced him. I just didn't take him seriously. I'm a jerk.

[Yes, that's the jerkiest thing I can think of. That goes to show how jerky I really am, I guess.]

p.s. My arm feels marginally better. Still hurts, but I no longer think amputation would be a relief. I started reading John Sarno's "Mind-Body Connection" book and I'm trying to believe in it.

p.p.s. I have made a few things to put up on etsy, and I'll link to them here once I get them there.

Hello people. So, I went to an orthopedist this morning who basically said I was doing all I could be doing. The next steps -- cortisone shot, electrical nerve test thing -- are unpleasant, so it behooves me to see how I do in the next few weeks before I get more medical intervention. CJ would love for my arm to magically and instantly get better so we can go back to being half-human warriors in our PS2 game, but I don't think I'll be doing much video gaming for a long time.

This week Mel Gibson is filming a movie in my town. He's the only name actor involved, so far as I can tell. There are big signs all over town saying "EOD" with arrows on them pointing the way to the shoot. old Honda dealership is the new ground zero for the catering trucks and extras parking. I saw them shooting outside of Tully O'Reilly's this morning. Wednesday is going to suck, as they're shutting down Main Street entirely. The town doesn't even shut down Main Street for the very popular sidewalk sales, but they'll go all out for Mel. (I complain, but I do think it's awesome when I see my town on film.)

I just chairwomaned my first meeting. I had 7 middle-aged (and older) people looking at me expectantly, and I had prepared nothing but a vague two-item list of discussion topics that existed only in my head. But it seemed to go ok. I just kept saying, "Yes, that [course of action] sounds good. Would you like to take the next step with that?" I ended up having very little to do before the next meeting, which is what I wanted. Whew.

And that's it for right now. Time to rest the arm.

I went to Brooklyn last weekend, and shot this video of my cutie-patootie niece, who is four and two-thirds years old.



I don't know how YouTube's compression system manages to make everything I upload look so incredibly terrible.

I haven't posted all week because my right arm is in burny pain pretty much all of the time -- from my neck to my fingers. RSI, probably, but who really knows? I am 99% sure my doctor will tell me to take ibuprofen and take it easy, and I'm already doing that, so I've been avoiding wasting my time and money. I've been trying to use my arm as little as possible, so no more typing for me at the moment.

Butterfly update! My little transformed friend has flown the coop! On Tuesday, CJ called me to tell me that the butterfly had hatched (sometime in the late morning). He sent me a cell phone picture and took a shot with my camera:


When I got home, the butterfly was standing on the bottom of the pitcher, looking either tired or near death:


After the light had been on for a few minutes, he got very lively and ended up near the top of the pitcher, hanging off a twig I'd put in there. Much better.
The next morning it was time to set him free. I brought the pitcher outside and made him get on my fingers.

He reluctantly got onto the morning glory vine I offered him, and then he just sat. It was too cold to fly (they need it to be 60 degrees out or warmer, says the internets) so he just hung out.


I kept trying to get a photo of him with his wings open, but he just sat there. And every time I'd give up, he'd open his wings for a moment. We eventually figured out that he opened his wings in response to my hand going up and down close to his back, so I gently waved my hand behind him, and got this:

By the time I got home from work that day, it was gone, of course. I hope it started flying due south as soon as the sunlight hit it.

Sunday morning I went and did a little work in the garden, and when I was pulling out one of my dead tomato plants, I found a chrysalis attached to one of the fabric strips. I brought it home and looked it up online, and sure enough, it's a monarch butterfly! I have never found a chrysalis before, ever. So I am pretty excited about watching this thing hatch. Of course, the actual hatching part takes just a minute, and it usually happens in the morning, so it's unlikely I'll witness it -- but I will see a brand-new butterfly! I loosely tied the fabric strip to a pencil, and placed the pencil over the mouth of a big glass pitcher. I covered the top with a round potholder so the future butterfly can get air but not escape until I've gotten it outside.
Anyway, I have a couple of photos. The first one is from yesterday. Note the little gold specks -- they look like actual gold, all metallic and shit. Crazy.



I love that color of green.
Today, after work, I noticed that the chrysalis is already becoming transparent, and you can see the wings a bit:



Pretty neat.

A few quick things: The cats are getting along well, though there are still minor hissy fights pretty much every day. One of my cats has recently tested positive for a whole mess of allergies, and since removing her from all of the allergins would require suspending her in a vacuum in deep space, I'm going to be starting allergy shots in a week or so. Daily allergy shots. Shots that will make it quite difficult for me to leave home, since I'll have to pay someone to give her the shots while I'm away. The daily shots will go on for four months before we even know if they're working. Then, I think, I get to taper off the shots until she's only getting one every three weeks or so. For the rest of her life. This is with a cat who freaks out at getting a drop of Revolution between her shoulder blades. Pray for me.

And the mattress seems to have relaxed a bit, or maybe we're just used to it -- either way, our bed is nice and cozy now.

I have no doubt that my tomatoes perished at the hands of the septoria leaf spot menace mentioned by a commenter. I probably got a third of the amount of tomatoes I harvested last year. And this septoria crap leaves its evil spores all over the soil, so in order to grow tomatoes in my plot again, I'm going to have to build a raised bed and bring in clean soil from somewhere else. With the money it'll cost me I might be better off buying heirloom tomatoes at the farmers' market. Maybe.

Tomorrow I am sworn in as president of an old-fashioned social association of which I have been to exactly one meeting (and that meeting was for electing people to serve as president, clerk, treasurer, etc.). I've been asked to say a few words about our vision for the association for the next year. I think I'll start with, "my presidency came about as the result of being the slowest one to say 'not it!' at the nominations meeting. [pause for applause] And I promise to continue to keep this association limping along as it has been for years despite the apathy and general laziness of its long-time members!" Then comes the cheering, "Barracuda" played over the sound system, and balloon drop.

Not really. We (me and my vice president, who is actually the Karl Rove and Dick Cheney of my Bush -- in that she has the ideas and the gumption, and I just stand in front of her and give out orders) are hopefully going to do some cool things. Things which you, local reader, may even want to attend. That's our plan, anyway.

Hi people! I just (yesterday) turned 36 years old. It's like I'm twelve, but thrice! I had a groovy weekend on Cape Cod, staying at a low-rent motel in Provincetown. Well, not IN P-town proper, but a nice 2 mile walk from the action. Our hotel was also just across the street from a bay beach, so we could go and wander around on the sand during low tide. I didn't choose the place -- my friends made reservations for 2 rooms for their bandmates, and only ended up needing one. So me and CJ went instead. We hung out with them a lot, and did some things on our own -- it was a fun way to vacation. When I left I got all sad that my friends wouldn't be right next door to me anymore. (Because I am 12, remember?) (The sadness could also be attributed to it being my birthday, and for the end of the last trip of the summer.)
Anyway, on the Cape we ate some great food, did a lot of walking, ate some more, walked through the dunes to the ocean, waded in the icy Atlantic, fondled some hermit crabs in the wild, sighted a seal, watched plovers plove, and saw our friends' bands play. On Saturday, CJ and I had a fancy meal in Wellfleet, and got soft-serve in P-town afterwards; he stuck a candle in my cone and sang Happy Birthday to me on the street. My actual birthday was the day we needed to drive home, but we managed to cram in a visit to the seashore, the three-county-fair, and the new episode of Mad Men, so I was happy. I even got some presents: A faux-Creuset dutch oven, a ridiculous stuffed patchwork cat, an excellent ski jacket from the 1980s (found online), The Warriors (an old PS2 game), a how-to-sew-knits book, pinking shears, and a gift certificate to the art supply store. And I have a couple more gifts to come, so I pretty much scored big time.
Here's what we watched at the fair last night, while eating fresh-from-the-oil french fries:


Updates on other matters: My garden has had some issues this year. My tomato plants have contracted some kind of nasty disease that attacks the leaves and makes them yellow, then brown spotted, then entirely crispy and dead. I am still harvesting tomatoes, but not nearly as many as last year. My eggplant are also very disappointing; I have four pieces of fruit total on two plants and none have yet gotten big enough to pick. My bean tepee is out of control, however; my freezer is almost full of blanched, bagged green beans. I am also happy with my zucchini yield (from one plant!), green bell peppers, and basil, which had a very slow start. My zinnias look great, the result of my first seed-saving experiment from last year. I'm growing other fresh herbs (the usual rosemary, parsley, and thyme, but also tarragon and shiso) but I, um, haven't so much been eating those.

And our mattress is much harder than the one we tried in the store. We (and by "we" I mean CJ) went back and talked to the salesguy, who determined that our mattress is formulated slightly differently than the one they have, so they would take ours back, no charge, for another model (store credit only, in other words). We were also assured that the mattress should loosen up over time (and that walking on it would help -- leading CJ to spend 45 minutes pacing on the bed one day), so we finally decided to keep it. It is big (my first queen-sized bed!) and despite having no boxspring and the most basic platform bed possible, feels super tall. I like the size and feel "meh" about the height, so I'm happy enough.