I've decided to ditch the attempts at regular posting (Life on the Couch & Geek Weekly), because me + deadlines = fail. I still intend to post about my life and my geekery, but I'm not going to try to keep up with a schedule that I clearly can't deal with.
Relax, I'm not beating myself up about it... I'm being realistic. It'll be more fun for all of us if I'm not blogging just for the sake of blogging. I want it to be about telling stories and sharing observations and hopefully being funny. I want to start seeing things with an eye towards sharing it with my readers (all six of you).
The idea will be to blog as I get ideas. This may be once a month, once a week, or three times a day. Inspiration can strike AT ANY TIME, people.
Now you'll have to excuse me, the pain meds + muscle relaxants are making the fluorescents turn purple and green. I need to stare at them (and occasionally do Crazy Eye) to make sure the dragons don't escape.
August 19, 2011
August 18, 2011
The hazards of being awesome
Last Friday I changed the broken taillight in my car. I don't just mean the bulb, I mean the whole assembly.
Yeah, I was pretty impressed too. Although, to be honest, we shouldn't be. It was ridiculously easy: lean into trunk, pull back fabric, remove a couple of screws; once the taillight pops out, unplug it. Then plug in the new assembly you got on Amazon (yes, they have everything) for $50, pop the taillight back in, replace the screws and fabric, done.
Seriously. It took me all of five minutes to do something that probably would have cost me $500 to get done at a shop. Needless to say, there was much manly flex-posing in the Treehouse that night.
Unfortunately, there was a price to pay for the cheap and ease of doing it my own damn self; my out-of-shape 33-year-old body decided it wasn't about to take that leaning-into-the-trunk crap without some retribution. By Saturday afternoon I was barely able to bend, stand, or even sit in one position for more than three minutes without a shit-ton of pain. My entire lower back felt like a giant clenched fist... one that was ready to reach up and punch me in the back of the head for my hubris.
Over the weekend I tried a number of techniques to banish the pain, from a slow walk through the neighborhood to a hot bath to fistfuls of ibuprofen. Nothing was helping. So Monday I gave up and went to urgent care.
The doctor I saw seemed to be a specialist in muscle and bone stuff (orthopedics? I'm not a medical expert, ok, stop judging me) who couldn't seem to stop telling me to "be more active." By the end of the five-minute consult I was ready to slap his active face right off his active head, because MY BACK HAS FILLED ME IN ON MY SHORTCOMINGS ALREADY, THANK YOU.
Ultimately I scored some muscle relaxant and Tylenol-3 (with codeine!), which I gobbled the moment I got into my car (after taking a second to admire the shiny new taillight). I've been taking both pretty regularly ever since, and here's what I can tell you about muscle relaxants + prescription painkillers:
1. Dry mouth is annoying. Even immediately after brushing my teeth, my tongue tastes like used socks. Bad side effects are bad.
2. The first few times I took both at once, I spent the next few hours alternately nodding off and dropping things. One of the side effects listed in the Tylenol-3 description was an "exaggerated sense of well-being." Indeed! It's a good thing I don't actually drive my car to work. Or have to pay attention at work.
3. Tomorrow night will be the true test of chemical reaction: what happens when you mix muscle relaxants, prescription painkillers, booze, and karaoke.
I'll leave it up to you to imagine what horrors this combination will bring forth.
Yeah, I was pretty impressed too. Although, to be honest, we shouldn't be. It was ridiculously easy: lean into trunk, pull back fabric, remove a couple of screws; once the taillight pops out, unplug it. Then plug in the new assembly you got on Amazon (yes, they have everything) for $50, pop the taillight back in, replace the screws and fabric, done.
Seriously. It took me all of five minutes to do something that probably would have cost me $500 to get done at a shop. Needless to say, there was much manly flex-posing in the Treehouse that night.
Unfortunately, there was a price to pay for the cheap and ease of doing it my own damn self; my out-of-shape 33-year-old body decided it wasn't about to take that leaning-into-the-trunk crap without some retribution. By Saturday afternoon I was barely able to bend, stand, or even sit in one position for more than three minutes without a shit-ton of pain. My entire lower back felt like a giant clenched fist... one that was ready to reach up and punch me in the back of the head for my hubris.
Over the weekend I tried a number of techniques to banish the pain, from a slow walk through the neighborhood to a hot bath to fistfuls of ibuprofen. Nothing was helping. So Monday I gave up and went to urgent care.
The doctor I saw seemed to be a specialist in muscle and bone stuff (orthopedics? I'm not a medical expert, ok, stop judging me) who couldn't seem to stop telling me to "be more active." By the end of the five-minute consult I was ready to slap his active face right off his active head, because MY BACK HAS FILLED ME IN ON MY SHORTCOMINGS ALREADY, THANK YOU.
Ultimately I scored some muscle relaxant and Tylenol-3 (with codeine!), which I gobbled the moment I got into my car (after taking a second to admire the shiny new taillight). I've been taking both pretty regularly ever since, and here's what I can tell you about muscle relaxants + prescription painkillers:
1. Dry mouth is annoying. Even immediately after brushing my teeth, my tongue tastes like used socks. Bad side effects are bad.
2. The first few times I took both at once, I spent the next few hours alternately nodding off and dropping things. One of the side effects listed in the Tylenol-3 description was an "exaggerated sense of well-being." Indeed! It's a good thing I don't actually drive my car to work. Or have to pay attention at work.
3. Tomorrow night will be the true test of chemical reaction: what happens when you mix muscle relaxants, prescription painkillers, booze, and karaoke.
I'll leave it up to you to imagine what horrors this combination will bring forth.
July 18, 2011
Life on the Couch: A whole new couch
There's been some big changes in my life recently, which is part of the reason I disappeared from blogging for a while there. The changes are all for the good, but no matter how awesome change is it takes some getting used to. (Translation: change=hard, depressing, and very very scary.)
One thing that happened, less than a week after returning home from a trip to Europe, was that I moved. I am no longer in the dungeon, folks, but in the upper apartment of a lovely old house in south Minneapolis. I have a new roommate and now live with five cats (including my two). We refer to the apartment as the Treehouse. Each room is a different color and it's all very cozy and Bohemian. Possibly the best part of all is that my wretched futon went into the dumpster, and I have a whole new (to me) couch to blog from:
Complete with cat.
Adjusting to living with a new person is always a bit of a challenge, but with only a month behind us we seem to be doing pretty well at it.
The other, less fortunate change is that I've been spending a LOT of time on the aforementioned couch in the past few weeks, because I'm an employee of the State of Minnesota. In case you've missed the news (or don't live in Minnesota), that means I've been laid off since July 1 due to a government shutdown. Which is not my fault at all, but nonetheless brought on a wave of guilt and despair the likes of which I haven't experienced in a long time. Fortunately the shutdown is apparently ending some time next week, so I can go back to work and stop feeling like a useless git.
For about six weeks. Then I quit my job and start college.
A prospect that fills me with a mixture of joy and excitement and anticipation and absolute terror.
I've been to college before, but now I'm going to a Proper University. The majority of my classmates will be fresh out of high school, and I'll be a 33-year-old single woman. I'm going to have to dye my hair blue pretty quickly to keep up. Wait, is dying your blue what the cool kids do these days? Maybe I should do purple instead.
There's also the math placement test I took earlier today... it turns out that the class I took in technical college, seven years ago? Didn't stick. I stared at the questions, sure that I had learned all this at some point. Numbers and fractions and graphs and trains 738 miles apart floated dreamily in front of my eyes as I struggled to remember what a logarithm was and how one went about finding it. Each question had "I don't know" as an answer option, and I picked it for almost every question. In the end, I got 3 correct out of 41.
3.
Out of 41.
It's a good thing I'm majoring in English.
One thing that happened, less than a week after returning home from a trip to Europe, was that I moved. I am no longer in the dungeon, folks, but in the upper apartment of a lovely old house in south Minneapolis. I have a new roommate and now live with five cats (including my two). We refer to the apartment as the Treehouse. Each room is a different color and it's all very cozy and Bohemian. Possibly the best part of all is that my wretched futon went into the dumpster, and I have a whole new (to me) couch to blog from:
Complete with cat.
Adjusting to living with a new person is always a bit of a challenge, but with only a month behind us we seem to be doing pretty well at it.
The other, less fortunate change is that I've been spending a LOT of time on the aforementioned couch in the past few weeks, because I'm an employee of the State of Minnesota. In case you've missed the news (or don't live in Minnesota), that means I've been laid off since July 1 due to a government shutdown. Which is not my fault at all, but nonetheless brought on a wave of guilt and despair the likes of which I haven't experienced in a long time. Fortunately the shutdown is apparently ending some time next week, so I can go back to work and stop feeling like a useless git.
For about six weeks. Then I quit my job and start college.
A prospect that fills me with a mixture of joy and excitement and anticipation and absolute terror.
I've been to college before, but now I'm going to a Proper University. The majority of my classmates will be fresh out of high school, and I'll be a 33-year-old single woman. I'm going to have to dye my hair blue pretty quickly to keep up. Wait, is dying your blue what the cool kids do these days? Maybe I should do purple instead.
There's also the math placement test I took earlier today... it turns out that the class I took in technical college, seven years ago? Didn't stick. I stared at the questions, sure that I had learned all this at some point. Numbers and fractions and graphs and trains 738 miles apart floated dreamily in front of my eyes as I struggled to remember what a logarithm was and how one went about finding it. Each question had "I don't know" as an answer option, and I picked it for almost every question. In the end, I got 3 correct out of 41.
3.
Out of 41.
It's a good thing I'm majoring in English.
June 29, 2011
Huh.
So...
It would appear I have a blog!
Sort of... uh... forgot about that.
Ok, that's a lie. I got behind and overwhelmed with life and it slipped through my fingers. More honestly yet, I let it slide, because I've been so up and down lately that I haven't been able to process everything in my own head, let alone on a blog. But I've been thinking about writing a lot, and would like to get back to it again. Especially since there's been lots of interesting stuff going on...
So!
Let's dance, shall we?
It would appear I have a blog!
Sort of... uh... forgot about that.
Ok, that's a lie. I got behind and overwhelmed with life and it slipped through my fingers. More honestly yet, I let it slide, because I've been so up and down lately that I haven't been able to process everything in my own head, let alone on a blog. But I've been thinking about writing a lot, and would like to get back to it again. Especially since there's been lots of interesting stuff going on...
So!
Let's dance, shall we?
May 2, 2011
Life on the Couch: So, this thing happened yesterday...
...and I've had no idea how I'm supposed to feel about it.
I watched along with millions of people around the world as my President announced that the American military, on his command, had killed a man who had spent the last decade being a modern-day boogeyman... and I was frightened. I listened to reporters and correspondents discuss the end of the war on terror... and I was skeptical. I watched footage of a crowd outside the White House singing and chanting and celebrating this boogeyman's death... and I was disturbed. I read statements from my own friends who were fiercely joyful at the news that a man had been killed... and I worried. I heard congratulations being offered by people I admired to other people I admired... and I squirmed.
I also wondered... why he was killed. Why he wasn't captured, and tried. I wondered what happened in that mansion in Pakistan that led to more death.
I've been thinking about 9/11 today, remembering the horror and the devastation and the fear and the mourning. I've tried to make those feelings fit with the feelings I've had about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I can't make them fit. I think about all the people who lost someone they loved as the result of orders and plans made by the man who was killed on the orders and plans of the American military and Barack Obama. I don't want to begrudge these victims the feeling of closure this might give them, the small amount of peace they may get from knowing this man is dead.
But it feels so wrong.
Here's what doesn't make sense. In his address to the nation (to the world), Obama said that justice had been served with the death of Bin Laden. But what happened last night wasn't justice. It was vengeance.
Justice would have been his capture and trail... even if the end result was the same. I am not a military strategist, or a politician, or an expert on foreign policy. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, an atheist or a believer. There are a lot of situations where I don't like to take a stand one way or the other because I just don't know enough about it to do so. But sometimes I have to trust my gut. And my gut is telling me that it's not right to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death. I could ramble on and on about why, but Martin Luther King Jr. said it better than I ever could:
“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Thanks to all the people who posted this on their Twitter feeds or Facebook statuses, and helped me to understand why I cannot celebrate alongside so many people that I love and respect.
I watched along with millions of people around the world as my President announced that the American military, on his command, had killed a man who had spent the last decade being a modern-day boogeyman... and I was frightened. I listened to reporters and correspondents discuss the end of the war on terror... and I was skeptical. I watched footage of a crowd outside the White House singing and chanting and celebrating this boogeyman's death... and I was disturbed. I read statements from my own friends who were fiercely joyful at the news that a man had been killed... and I worried. I heard congratulations being offered by people I admired to other people I admired... and I squirmed.
I also wondered... why he was killed. Why he wasn't captured, and tried. I wondered what happened in that mansion in Pakistan that led to more death.
I've been thinking about 9/11 today, remembering the horror and the devastation and the fear and the mourning. I've tried to make those feelings fit with the feelings I've had about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I can't make them fit. I think about all the people who lost someone they loved as the result of orders and plans made by the man who was killed on the orders and plans of the American military and Barack Obama. I don't want to begrudge these victims the feeling of closure this might give them, the small amount of peace they may get from knowing this man is dead.
But it feels so wrong.
Here's what doesn't make sense. In his address to the nation (to the world), Obama said that justice had been served with the death of Bin Laden. But what happened last night wasn't justice. It was vengeance.
Justice would have been his capture and trail... even if the end result was the same. I am not a military strategist, or a politician, or an expert on foreign policy. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, an atheist or a believer. There are a lot of situations where I don't like to take a stand one way or the other because I just don't know enough about it to do so. But sometimes I have to trust my gut. And my gut is telling me that it's not right to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death. I could ramble on and on about why, but Martin Luther King Jr. said it better than I ever could:
“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Thanks to all the people who posted this on their Twitter feeds or Facebook statuses, and helped me to understand why I cannot celebrate alongside so many people that I love and respect.
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