Paralyzing Fear

It's been a while, I'd say... I just need to get some thoughts out of my system, and maybe that'll help conquer them. Who knows, though...

So, when last we saw our heroes (me), I was embarking on a 90-day short-term disability leave from my work. Immediately following this term, I filed a long-term disability claim, which was (hooray!) accepted, and now for the next 2 years I am receiving ~$1,500 per month, to be continued until 2049 if they decide that my disability extends to "any occupation" rather than "own occupation." That is certainly good news and I'm not complaining about that.

However, mandated unemployment has its drawbacks. Although I do my best to get out of the house to work out and do errands, and thusly have maintained a good physical lifestyle, I find myself nearly unable to do anything that expands my mind or life. I clean the house, I cook, I shop, I feed myself and Branden, but when all of those things are done, I just... do nothing.

And then there are things that I really want to do, activities I'd like to get involved in, things that I've basically "decided" to do—like Boulder Community Choir—but when I go back and think about them, my thoughts go something like, "I can't commit to that, that's too much, I don't know if I'll want to keep doing that." I haven't looked into a Tae Kwon Do dojo or ceramics classes, I haven't even finished reading my book about producing webcomics. I don't finish my sketches, I don't finish my stories; I was in the middle of a Shadowrun plot that I was very excited about running, but the idea of continuing to write my ideas down is terrible because I'm sure that my ideas are terrible and the longer I spend wasting my time on recording them, the worse I'm making the world.

I feel like I can run the lives of others to their betterment; I have lost 30 pounds since Christmas by the power of my will alone, and as per usual it's easy to tell other people what to do and even be right. But my own life is unapproachable.

Maybe it's the Tylenol PM talking. I hope so. Right now it's looking pretty bad.

10 years later

News flash, internet: Jar Jar Binks is no longer funny. If he ever was.

Long coupla weeks.

Many of you who read my blog know about a lot of the things that have been going on in my life, but I feel that for posterity's sake I should sorta list it out and sort it out and see what form it takes. The whole story is long and seems unrelated, but it's all connected, so I'm going to start with the storms first, then whip them to perfection.

Storm #1
Branden's work gave him stock options as a perk, like workplaces do. Up until this point, these were just that—options. He couldn't buy them because they're not a publicly traded company, nor sell them because he can't own them because he can't buy them because they're not a publicly traded company. However, recently, his employer opened up an employee stock incentive program under which employees could trade up to 50% of their salary for stock in the company, at a 15% discount off the most recently evaluated board member purchase price. This program would be available for as long as there were stocks left (the pool is shared between all employees). Because we're concerned for our future and we have been saving and sticking to budgets, etc, we decided to go all in—50% salary for as much stock as possible. We are now completing month 1 of half-salary living.

Storm #2
Branden and I did not go on a honeymoon when we were married. We didn't have the money to even consider such a thing. Now that we're 3 years out of school, Branden's got a good job, I've got a good job, and we've started saving money, we thought it'd be the perfect time to have a honeymoon—concurrent with our 3-year anniversary. We batted it around, made sure that we really believed it was a good idea, put in our PTO requests to our works, and finally, once all the formalities were handled, we purchased plane tickets to Italy. We applied for (or renewed, as appropriate) our passports, we've started booking hotels and hostels. The honeymoon is a go and I certainly can't imagine a better place, time, or person to go with!

Storm #3
Considering the treatment of my MS and what implications it has regarding reproduction, the idea of having kids has been something that Branden and I have had to consider with the calculating eye of a chef in a kitchen. The question regarding whether we should have kids isn't even what's at stake here, but more if we want to have kids, what does that entail? How early do we need to start making preparations (getting off medications, etc)? What sorts of things should we expect? We're approaching "having kids" in a very roundabout way—we're trying to figure out if it's feasible or possible before we approach the decision of whether to actually do it or not. In preparation for the approaching of this decision, I have been in close concert with Planned Parenthood and my team of crack neurologists regarding timing, health, medication, and etc. Directly because of this plan, I have gone off of Tysabri, and if all had gone well, I could be trying to get pregnant right about now.

Storm #4
When I was hired at my job, it was through my good friend and former boss Vinnie, who wedged me into the company he worked for as soon as they had any openings. This was great and excellent; the health benefits were good, the other bennies were good, the pay was good, it was challenging and rewarding and overall a very good job for me to have. In addition, I got to work with my friend Vinnie and I made a bunch of new friends. However, over the course of the year + that I've been there, Vinnie and his boss, Shelly, had more and more friction between them. Vinnie felt that he understood their relationship to allow for some flexing of his own muscles, judgement-wise, and apparently this was not the case. Shelly expected Vinnie to shout "how high" when she screamed "jump," and no less so just because a split second before that she was telling him to get on the ground... However, the point of this particular storm is that, after months of conflict, Shelly finally fired Vinnie. Because I was Vinnie's "favorite" and Shelly didn't want to hire me to begin with, I immediately began feeling like a bug in a jar. Going in to work was like running a gauntlet, and I knew that something had to happen—not least because Vinnie told me that Shelly was planning on writing me up. However, the days passed fairly innocuously, if tensely.

Storm #5
Because of the tenseness I was feeling at work, I decided that it would be a good idea for Branden and I to start looking into buying a home. We live on property at my work, and get a 20% discount off rent & don't have to pay any deposits—if I were to get fired, our rent would go up $300/month and we'd immediately have to fork out $1,100 for security deposit, pet deposit and garage door opener deposit. I was trying to figure out a good way to buy a place and keep our monthly payment to about what it is right now, or less. We looked at some listings online and got back in touch with some realtors we had been in touch with years before (when we had naïvely considered buying a house while in college), and have been diligently pursuing this possibility. If we manage to close by the end of June, we can get the $8,000 tax credit for new home-buyers; however, we're not going to rush it.

• A side note to this storm is this: the first day we went out looking at properties, we went to look at one particular one that we both immediately fell in love with. It had these beautiful dark hardwood floors, wood-burning fireplace, lots of nice cabinetry and counter space, and 3 bedrooms—just gorgeous. No yard or lawn though... However, by the time we told the realtors later that day that we were interested in pursuing it, the house was already under contract. I cry now.

Storm #6
My MS treatment... ah.... that loops back around to the "having kids" idea, but it is unrelated enough to be a different issue. I had gotten off Tysabri in anticipation of possibly getting pregnant. Our plan was to do the following: in December, right as I was getting off Tysabri, I got an MRI to see where I was as a "baseline". That MRI came back pretty much normal—no active lesions, no current activity. Then, I was to get another MRI in March to see how I was handling the new medication. Well, I started feeling some very minor symptoms on March 12th, so I called my nurse. She decided to wait on steroid treatment through the weekend, then see how I was doing. The following Monday I wasn't doing significantly better, but neither was I doing significantly worse, so we decided to wait on steroids until after my MRI, which I would schedule for as soon as possible. The unfortunate thing was that I couldn't schedule an MRI until the following Monday. Well, by that Thursday I was not okay with waiting anymore, so I left work at 3pm and a home nurse came out to try to get an IV in me. Anyone who's familiar with my MS drama knows the song and dance so I won't belabor the tragic point: she couldn't get a line. Then we couldn't call it in to Boulder Community Hospital, so I was going to have to go in to my hospital the following day (making me miss work). Well, because that's what I had to do, I did it. Then, I had the MRI Monday, and went back to work Tuesday. I was feeling very discombobulated, irrational, out-of-sorts and obsessive and was just about freaking out when I got a call from my nurse saying that I needed to come in to the ER as soon as possible to try to get looked at, because my MRI results were very worrying.

So... I went to the ER. 4+ hours later they sent me home with instructions to come back the next day for another steroid infusion—4 days this time. (All to be done at home, except for the installation, of course.) They also told me that I should be out of work until at least the following Tuesday. Then, the next Monday, the 22nd, I had an appointment with my neurologist himself.

Storm #7
Back to work issues—because of my time out of the office, I was terrified that Shelly would fire me for performance if I did come back on Tuesday the 23rd. The way I figured it, it would be good for the company if she did—I'm sure they would love to not have to pay my insurance premiums. So I was trying to decide whether I should take short term disability leave even if I didn't "need" it so that I could have 90 days guaranteed insurance & partial pay, or if I should do the "honest" thing and go to work and risk the "punishment" that Shelly might dole out; losing my job, which would include all income (rather than partial), any form of insurance coverage, and my home. (Of course, on the other hand, she may not fire me, in which case, I'd be making my full income, which would have been a good thing considering, well, all of the other pending issues. But even if she hadn't fired me right away, she could fire me at any time...)

</Storms>

You see how A Perfect Storm has nothing on me?

The resolution of this story is predictably tame: Everything's working out for the best. Dr. Vollmer said that I'm suffering from steroid withdrawl and Tysabri rebound, and that I won't be back to "baseline" for around 90 days anyway, so I'm taking all the STD that I need, and if everything works out well, I'll go back to work at the end and maybe Shelly won't hate me then. But even if she does, a lot of the pressure will be off me for being employed anyway. I will keep everyone up to date with the house hunt. ^_^ Also, I want to shout out to Hanna, Lilly, Fletch and Christina, who were all in town for some of this drama and were patient and loved me anyway. Particularly Fletch, the immortal chauffeur. *hugs* What would I do without my friends? I love all of you... A domani, tutti.

Today's adults were NOT yesterday's kids... WTF???

This is outrageous.

I don't understand the movement towards installing your children in figurative plastic bubbles to protect them from the world. I mean, I would understand actual plastic bubbles—that actually offers real, physical protection. But... disallowing trick-or-treating? Banning books? Particularly the dictionary?! It's the same concept as banning guns—pretty soon, the only people who have books are the ones with all the power over the children.

I mean... if removing a child's access to words removed the things those words meant (ie, if you don't know the words "oral sex," then oral sex doesn't exist), then I could see some limited advantage to banning books. (But really, we shouldn't be removing oral sex from people's lives. Why would you?!) But this particular censorship technique results in the kids who don't have dictionaries or internet access or horrible-but-kind older siblings at home don't know what the phrase "oral sex" means... but that doesn't stop more informed (or pervy) peers from trying to take advantage of them and get them to put their mouths on the peers' genitals.

Anyone who watches action or mystery movies knows that knowledge is power. Similarly, ignorance is weakness. If a person knows what oral sex is, then a peer seeking to take advantage of them can't tell them it's something different, like a game, an experiment, or a joke. (See Competence: Law & Order SVU episode.) To be educated & informed is not to automatically be tainted or impure; it simply helps to prevent 1) miscommunications 2) looking (and being) completely ignorant 3) and people taking advantage of your ignorance.

I remember being younger (I don't remember what age I was, unfortunately)—my family had an unabridged dictionary. I spent lots of happy minutes (I was a kid, I didn't have that much attention span) looking up dirty words and stuff before realizing that I was having fun looking stuff up in the dictionary. Some amount of time after that, I hear the phrase "chicken hawk" on SNL, and had to know what it meant. So... I looked it up in my unabridged dictionary. And I learned what it was (slang-wise... I already knew about the bird). And I went "oh, huh, I feel informed now." It didn't immediately make me want to be (or be a victim to) an older gay man. Similarly, despite the positive slant the book Where Did I Come From puts on sex, having it read to me as a little kid didn't make me immediately want to go have sex.

Banning all things that make some reference to "intimate parts" or sexuality is simply unrealistic and, in the end, very harmful to learning children. For example, I have several or many friends whose first porn was National Geographic. That's obviously not the recommended use for National Geographic... but man. Horny pubescent kids will turn ANYTHING into porn. Don't victimize the good stuff because of it! Damn people.

Bleh

My Halloween story sucks. I am sad about it. That is all

Untitled Story, 1st installment

       It had begun with the best of intentions. A small village with only the most rudimentary government and a major road running through it; they needed protection, and no one would do it but themselves. So, they organized a civilian’s militia whose job it was to protect the village and the people in it.
       Of course, "village" refers not just to the village proper with the inn and the tavern and the village square, but the outlying farms as well—which meant that the job of protection was a full-time job. Unsubsidized, the men of the militia depended on the generosity of the people they protected for food for themselves and money for their families, who themselves were farmers or tradesmen of the village, left without the man of the house who was, traditionally, the primary workhorse. These men were vigilantes and their only objective was the safety of the persons and prosperity of the village, and regrettably had to take extreme measures from time to time to ensure that safety.
       This was all well and good, and was actually quite effective in keeping the village safe for about 40 years.
       That was when things began to change.
~~~       The streets were no longer pounded dirt but cobblestone, which was beautiful when it was new but had since become chipped and broken after years of neglect. Mud oozed up from the spaces between the stones and the sharp edges proved hazardous to the village children, who regrettably had few other places to play since the green had dried up. No one lit the lamps after dark; in fact, when an enterprising citizen scrambled up and lit the lamp himself, the wind soon snuffed it out since the glass funnel had long since been broken. Those who prowled the streets at night preferred the dark, and they kept it that way.
       The typical youth of the village chafed against the stifling curfew of violence. As one might imagine, there was little for the youth to do, but they still wanted to be out from under their parents’ eyes for their trysts and romances. On occasion, a brave couple would venture out after dark, assuming more than hoping that the Enforcers would be elsewhere while they kissed and groped and attempted some level of intimacy; a bright light in the darkness of the oppression that hung over the village like a cloud.
       The couples who were found by the Enforcers never ventured out after dark again.
~~~       A pair of feet cruelly pinned her wrists to the cobblestones. A dirty handkerchief was stuffed in her mouth. The boy she'd stepped out with, Thomas, was nowhere to be seen, but she kept hearing disturbing, meaty sounds and muffled cries. However upsetting that was, she couldn't spare room in her brain to think about that, as the men who were pushing up her skirts and wrenching her legs apart were a bit more pressing on her mind. She knew what was coming, she had heard the stories, but she had never really believed that it could happen to her. Tears streamed down her face, running into her ears and hair, blurring her vision. She was unmercifully sealed into a world where the primary sensory input was pain and violation. Their hands were rough where she was delicate and they furthered this indignity by being disgusting pigs of men: clearing their throats and spitting on the cobblestones by her head, laughing at comments unheard, rubbing their saliva on her. She kept her jaws clenched as tightly as the handkerchief allowed. If she could just keep her anguish inside, she would have one small victory over these thugs.
       However strong her resolve, though, when the first of the men shoved his way into her, she released a low, tortured moan. She wasn't sure if she was relieved or further humiliated that no one seemed to care that she had lost her last bit of control. It was only the most minor of concerns, though, compared to the feeling of her body seeming to tear and rend apart under the influence of this man’s exertions. She sobbed and tried to fill her head with something to drown out the pain.
       The first man finished with her. There were three others.
       An hour or more later, they left her in the alleyway, her dress torn and muddy, hair matted, blood on her thighs. They told her that she should tell her parents to upgrade their protection package. She couldn't stand. Thomas was never the same. His thoughts were slightly slower, and he was more likely to laugh at inappropriate times.
~~~       They walked the streets, looking for supple young flesh or vulnerable purses. The Enforcers were now the village council's subsidized police force. They were still effective at protecting the village from bandits, though they rarely made rounds out to the outlying farms anymore; which, if you asked the farmers, wasn't necessarily a bad thing. They also kept the crime rate down; mainly by declaring their own activities not crime. The council lived in fear of the Enforcers as much as any of the other villagers. This system was what had grown out of the vigilante citizen's militia passed down from father to son two or three generations ago, degenerating into thugs as the need for their services had decreased and their personal loyalty to the people had disappeared. It had become "just a job," and a poorly paying job at that, and the Enforcers had decided to take all they could get, whenever they could get it. And, following that, the job they were supposed to be performing fell to the wayside, all pretenses of legitimacy disappeared, and they were predators, rabid animals with no higher power in the village to keep them in check.
       The villagers despaired; peaceful people by nature, craftsmen and farmers, with no training in personal defense beside the inevitable brute force of people who reap wheat and slaughter animals by the power of their own two hands. They couldn't leave their homes, their farms, and their trades; they couldn't feel safe here in the village. They were mistrustful of any organized effort to oust the Enforcers, because vigilantism is what had gotten them into this situation to begin with. So, they huddled in their homes, trembling at the thought of not being able to pay their protection money, nervous when their children were unaccounted for for even a few minutes, and praying to the ever-more-vengeful gods that the world would become a better place.
       Who knows? Maybe the gods even heard.
~~~       Of course, during the day the village was not such a dire place. It had an active monthly marketplace with thriving trade. Apple brandy, fresh-baked honeybuns and farm-fresh vegetables and fruits were the perfect refreshments for those who attended the market looking for shoes, clothing, and other goods. Children ran and played together, underfoot in the most welcome way, and more distant neighbors took the opportunity to catch up on family news. Village state of affairs was staunchly avoided as a conversation topic as some of the tavern owners did their best to redistribute the wealth that the Enforcers bestowed upon them through their libations each and every night. The more socially conscious of them quietly overpaid for their purchases; the others simply bought everything they thought they might have any chance of needing over the next month or so. Through this crowd, a farmer's son wandered.
       This farmer's son was no longer a boy to play with the others underfoot, but not yet a man with his own family and land. Still sheltered from the realities of the village law enforcement and living far enough from the village to have suffered few ill effects from the Enforcers, he had dreams of justice, law, and standing up for the underdogs. His older brother was looking forward to inheriting the farm and would be an excellent farmer to follow his father; he himself had grander dreams.
       "Duncan! Duncan, come play!" screamed his little sister, Elsie. Still young enough to wear her hair loose and run with the other little boys and girls, Elsie was a gorgeous girl. Unlike other younger sisters, she was pleasant to be around, always cheerful and friendly, oddly insightful for a girl her age but not so mature as to be unsettling. Duncan did not pick up on the way the adults regarded her with apprehension and protectiveness. He didn't know, yet, what dangers could threaten her sweet innocence.

Ahahahahaaha

(c) Dr McNinja @ http://drmcninja.com

(c) Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal @ http://www.smbc-comics.com

Small update

Well, just a little news. Griffin and Aaron have their own place in Longmont now. We left the Habitat apartment just a little worse for wear after 4 years of habitation but as clean as we could make it. We just hung a set of shelves in our bathroom—and that's hilarious, because it's a $400+ set of shelves I won from ListenUp 2 Chrismasses ago. It was supposed to be a media shelf and is thusly very heavy-duty and stylish. It has holes for cord management. I'm going to have to post a picture later XD

Last night I worked with charcoal for the first time in years. I'm drawing Dr. Who (Eccleston) because he's a cool lookin' dude. I got stuck jumping from the left side of the face to the right, but I'm going to come back to it later.

I also drew the next page in my comic. It didn't hurt at all! We had a lot of fun talking about art and what it "should" mean when you can't expect to make a living off it... Anyway, I'm feeling a lot more artistically optimistic.

MS is same-old, same-old. Saw Vollmer on the 24th and that was, as always, a positive experience. I'm on track to be going off Tysabri in December as planned. My next infusion is September 8th.

In other, less awesome news... I have a stack of paper over an inch thick. Each sheet has someone on it that I have to call... today. >_<

So yeah, that's all I got to say =) Hang loose, all!

Things Are Looking Up

Hello faithful audience.

This is going to be short. There is no meaningful updates here; only that I can feel creative energy coming back to me (finally! I was starting to freak out). It feels good. Now if only I had the time...

New phase of life

Okay, it seems like it's been forever since I had a real, live update. Even the one in February doesn't count. So, here's another life update for the morbidly curious.

I've been on Tysabri for 6 months now, and I've had nothing but good experiences with it—medically, that is. Every single month is an adventure in pincushionhood, on the other hand. But what can you do? It's like one of those silly stupid hypothetical half-drunk questions: "would you rather suffer more MS symptoms ... or get poked with needles for hours, one day a month??" I guess I've learned the answer to that one.

Other things in my life have been greatly affected by my choice in medication. For one, it causes birth defects, so I can't decide to try to have kids until after I'm off it—if I was planning on trying anyway—which, shockingly, scarily, and horrifyingly enough, it seems I may be.

My mother has also wanted to be present for my infusions every month. This hasn't always been possible, but when it is, I absolutely hate it. She gets far more upset about bad pokes than I do, behaves embarrassingly (ie, acting out her parade stories as she's telling them to me... in the infusion room), and, most frustratingly of all, answers questions that nurses ask ME.

(Days Later) Whatever. Moving on.

Branden and I celebrated our 2-year anniversary a bit ago, the last weekend of May. It was very relaxing, romantic, and awesome. On the way home from Denver, we got a call from Branden's mom telling him that his brother Aaron had been sending her disturbing text messages about how she was going to lose a son, and other suicide-sounding messages. Now, Aaron had just spent a week or two down in Pagosa with her, attempting to work for her boyfriend's raft service. He had to go back up to Fort Collins for a parole meeting. On his way up there, his motorcycle broke down. So, he missed his meeting and was stranded in Fort Collins with no money and no place to stay. He had a sort-of girlfriend and his (and Branden's) brother Griffin up there, but for one reason and another he couldn't stay with either of them. Cutting out the details and intervening events, we got ahold of Aaron and offered to fix his bike for him if he would bring it down to Boulder and take it to a mechanic's.

The saga of the motorcycle is long and convoluted, but that isn't the important part of the story, so I'm going to condense it down: we got the motorcycle fixed, a couple of days later it caught on fire while he was driving so he parked it somewhere "temporarily." Then he finds out from the person who actually owns the bike that he is going to report it stolen to get out of paying it off, etc. So, the bike is gone and honestly, I'm relieved.

So, come to find out, Aaron's stay with Deb turned out about as well as his entire childhood with Deb... which is to say, not very well. So he decided not to go back to Pagosa. We offered him room on our couch while he found a job and saved up enough money to get his own place. So, he's been living with us since May 31.

A week or two later, Griffin came down and also started sleeping on our floor, looking for a job.

Condensing again: They're both gainfully employed now, saving money to get their own apartment together in the Boulder area. They both feel like they're getting a new start to life and that the situation in Fort Collins was terribly toxic. It seems that Aaron may actually be getting free of the witch. And, all is good in Conley boys land.

Branden and I lived in the Habitat apartment with them until June 23rd, when we got the keys to our new apartment in the Horizons, where I work. However, ON the 23rd, the day we were supposed to start painting and moving, I woke up with a terrible stomach ache. Branden took me to the hospital, and 12 hours later, they took out my appendix. It basically decommissioned me for the ENTIRE MOVE. This would have been great except that, of course, I spent the whole time feeling frustrated and guilty that I wasn't helping more. I'm still not supposed to lift more than 25-30 pounds for another week or so.

But, we got moved (mostly). We have a few more carloads, and our house is quickly filling up (yikes!), but it looks great. We're starting to feel like real grown-ups, and I don't know how I feel about that. But, it does feel nice to not live in chaos anymore. The Habitat apartment is Griffin and Aaron's until August 9th or so, when they have to be moving into their own place so that we can start cleaning and getting it in order for move-out.

We lived at Habitat for 4 years, so this transition is quite a shock for me. I had forgotten how to move, which seems to be mostly okay because I think I've broken some of the more horrible habits I have about it. I'm going to miss it, but the new place really is vastly more awesome, with better amenities and the whole bit.

Also, my whole repertoire of friends is moving up here. Dan and Carlie and Chris Rossi are already here, Joe and Sarah are moving in this weekend, Steph and Ian will be moving here in August (probably), and there may be a slow trickle of other friends, depending on how taken they are with the place when they come to visit. Shad won't be joining us, unfortunately. That actually makes me sad because we used to hang out a lot, now we probably won't anymore.

I'm not a total convert to the area. I hate Safeway (as compared to King Soopers). I don't like suburbia. It feels ungenuine, because it's all apartment complexes or condo communities, and chain restaurants / retail stores. There're no small, long-established local businesses. No cozy nooks. But the price and location is right, for now. We'll see for the long term.

Well, that's all for now peeps. Talk at you later!

*meanders into the room*

My long-lost best friend from middle school is an amazing blogger, an inspiration to single moms and married childless couples and anyone else in the world in my opinion... and she gave me this award. I'm not sure I deserve it, and I'm even less sure that I have the nerts to say 10 things that are difficult for me to share... 1) because I feel like I share almost anything under the opinion that if I'm not proud of thinking it then I shouldn't be and 2) because if I'm not sticking to that opinion then it's REALLY something I shouldn't be sharing. But I'll give it a shot, eh?


The Honest Scrap award is given by other bloggers who consider a blog’s content or design to be brilliant. The awardees must then post ten honest things about
themselves and pass the award on to other bloggers who fit the bill – in other words, whose blog is brilliant.”



I think honesty is put to the test when you tell people things you’d rather not share. Things that scare you. So here’s 10 painfully honest / potentially disturbing things about me (proceed with caution):

1. I think I've lost the capability to express myself artistically. I tell people who say this sort of thing to me, "that's ridiculous, just make yourself do it!" But I can sit and stare at a blank page for hours, feeling more and more frustrated and helpless. I don't want to give up but repeatedly trying and failing makes me feel worse than not trying.
   
2. I fear, often, that I've made all the wrong decisions in my life. Yes, I'm happy, but I'm not doing all the things I dreamed of doing--or any of them really. I'm too old, and too young.
   
3. I really really hate it when people suggest to me that I do something that I was already planning on doing. I don't know why, but it immediately makes me want to refuse.
   
4. My sex drive is all but gone. Sixteen, where did you go?
   
5. I think I might be a mean person. At least judgemental.
   
6. I deeply resent having to work full time to earn insurance for my chronic illness. Seems bass-ackwards to me.
   
7. I MS'd out of Grad school without even finishing 1 semester after doing a ton of work and 6 years of planning and longing. I don't think I'll ever go back.
   
8. I believe that a few generations after I'm gone, it will be as though I never was.
   
9. Most of my friends call me a "badass" or "courageous" or "amazing" because I don't let things stop me. I call that celebrating mediocrity. If I was those things, I'd still be in Grad school, or have something published, or be accomplishing anything at all.
   
10. I think I might love my cats more than my (future) kids. This sucks, because they almost certainly have a shorter lifespan. But I can tell them what to do forever, and they can't throw screaming tantrums in grocery stores.
    

So, while my life is not exactly boring right now, I don't think I have the time to type about it right now. I'll post at a later date, I promise.



Tag, crazy people!



Adventures in Domesticity

Stargazer's Observatory

Tea Party With the Hatter

Burning Tree

K.D. Bryan

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a scam. It was entirely fabricated by greeting card companies, flower companies, and chocolate companies for the purpose of sucking poor schmoes' wallets dry out of the sense that their significant other would kill them if they didn't buy such things for them for V-Day. These companies either didn't stop to consider the feelings of single people, or just don't care.

Of course, this stupid holiday is insidious. When a person in a relationship (myself) says the above paragraph, the secretly (or openly) bitter single people think (or say), sure, that's easy for you to say, you have the option to be arrogant and laissez-faire about it... and etc. and etc. and etc.

When a single person says it, other single people and people in relationships think, sure, rationalize it away, pretend you don't wish you had someone to pamper you. We get it. It hurts less if you pretend you don't care.

But I would like to say, here, now, and without any arrogance or laissez-faire attitude, that I hate Valentine's Day. Everything you might get your significant other is 3 times more expensive around this time of year than any other time. It universally makes single people miserable, or at least single-conscious. Plus, by its very nature it implies that there's no real reason to be romantic and loving with your significant other any other time. "This is the time when it means something." It seems to say.

And yet, even so, every year it comes around and B and I agree to ignore it. Yet, as the day draws closer I get more and more nervous, thinking he's going to surprise me with something, thinking I should surprise him with something. V-Day is the absolute best for guilt-tripping perfectly happy people into spending money. >_<

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Erf. Long time is long. Okay so...

November 24th I saw a new neurologist. Timothy Vollmer, one of the leading neurologists in the field of MS. It was at an intimidatingly huge medical facility in Denver. Talking to the man was like reading a research paper, he had so many facts and figures. He was scary knowledgeable, and refreshingly take-charge. There was no "so what do you want to do? What do you feel comfortable with?" He told me what my best options were and started the process of getting me on a new medication. He was like a steamroller. But, it was so very encouraging.

I'm going to be getting on a medication called Tysabri, which blocks the immune system from accessing the brain at all. This means that, for a year, I shouldn't be having any MS symptoms at all. Why stop after a year, you say? Because there is a virus that lives in all of our bodies that will build up in the brain when it's sheltered from the immune system and han be fatal if not stopped; even if it's caught quickly it can cause permanent damage. However, there are 5 reported cases in 40,000 patients on Tysabri, and not one happened before the patient had been on Tysabri for a year.

I started a new job on December 10 ($4.35/hour more than I made at ListenUp!!!), and aside from the pay increase there's a lot of really awesome bennies. Excellent health insurance (+ vision & dental), 401k, life insurance, disability insurance, on and on. A positive and busy workplace and the days go quickly, even if I am tired at the end. However, I was (mis)led to believe that the insurance would be active the day I started, when actually, it's active the first day of the month following the beginning of employment. That left me insurance-free for 21 days, and we couldn't get the ball rolling on the Tysabri until then. And now that the ball is rolling, it's going to take up to 4 weeks to actually get my first dose.

In the meantime, my hands are still 90% numb. That's not likely to get any better until I'm on this new medication (if even then... there's always the thrilling chance that the damage may be permanent. However, that's not likely). Blech. I go through cycles of preemptively getting excited about having my hands back soonish and being depressed because I think that I've forgotten how to type, use screwdrivers or pliers, be a normal person with normal hands in any way. I've discovered that I cannot put on post earrings...though I wear earrings so rarely I wouldn't be surprised if I'd forgotten how to do that before now.

In other news, my best friend Carlie and my good friend Dan (one of B's groomsmen) have found love, happiness and bliss in each other's arms. They are both vomiting slimy pink fluff (contradiction in terms, I know... picture fluff made of gak) everywhere. Congrats to them, they deserve all the happiness in the world ^_^

And...that's all folks. =)

Hair curler warnings

Well, first and foremost, I don't think I'll ever curl my hair. Which is a bummer because it's super-long and looks badass when it's curled. I just don't have the arm-strength, endurance, or skill for it. Oh well.

But in any case, there's something ominous and faintly disturbing about the warning "this product can burn eyes." I mean, it's got a little bit of mysticality and magic about it when we're talking about some substance that can burn your eyes at range without ever coming into contact with them, like bleach or ammonia. But it's somehow much more terrible when this warning is on a hair curler. It makes me want to stop, go "what? Huh? Really?" and question what way a hair curler can burn your eyes that is somehow different from the way it burns everything else.

That is all.

Long-awaited, most tedious update

I say tedious because I'm having to type with 2 fingers, deleting typos at least once or twice a sentence. My hands have gotten progressively worse since my August flare-up. I got on steroids at the end of September (oral, rather than IV) which actually helped quite a bit on all of my other symptoms (fairly standard Elly-MS-flare-up symptoms). However, my hands are now nearly useless. I drop everything I try to hold including phones, butter and needles. I can't open jars or my medication bottles. I can't put my hair up in an elastic. I can hardly go to the bathroom w/o help.

I'm getting on a new primary medication, b/c a blood test was done and they found that I've built up antibodies against my meds. But there was a paperwork snafu and I'm not getting it as fast as I should be (which was apparently supposed to be 2nd week of Oct).

I've come to realize that I'm a Darwinist, or whatever you call people who believe in survival of the fittest more than anything else. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I don't really believe in social programs that care for people who can't care for themselves. So, my moral beliefs are actually conflicting with my existence ATM.

It's just an uncomfortable place to be, morally, emotionally, physically. I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't pass. Aside from basic functionality, everything that I do that I love, arts & crafts & etc, require hands. :-&

So yeah, I'm in a little bit of a dark place right now. I made Branden and Carlie some kick-ass Halloween costumes, and consequently, didn't finish my own. My house is so messy I can't stand it. I haven't had time to eat "real" food since October started. All of a sudden, I can understand why 15% of all deaths in MS patients is suicide.

I can only hope that the party tonight makes up for all of it, and afterwards the stress level declines and I get my new medication and my hands magically get better. >_< Cross your fingers for me.

Books

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has read only 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those that you've read.
2.) Italicize those you intend to read.
3.) Underline the books you LOVE.
4.) Reprint this list in LJ


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger [HATED it]
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood [another fave]
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I've read over a quarter of these books--what was surprising to me was how few of the remaining books I have any interest in reading. This is of course not taking into account which movies I've seen and either: enjoyed enough to feel like reading the book would be redundant; or disliked enough to turn me off the book. Like, the BBC broadcast [approx. 6 hours] of Pride and Prejudice was SO FREAKING AWESOME that I'd just probably watch that again and again rather than read the book; while Grapes of Wrath movie was so excruciatingly boring I couldn't imagine willingly reading the book. It's likely that I'll end up reading some of these just cause I don't have anything else to read, but as of now I'm not really planning on reading more than the ones I have italicized

*lol* Okay, Hanna, okay, okay...

All right, I guess it's time for another epic update. First, though, I'll do Hanna's meme. My life in 6 words:

1. Reinvention
2. Art
3. Friendship
4. Experiences
5. Learning
6. Motivation

Those last 3 are necessities in keeping life interesting when your job (where you spend most of your time) is so pointless and dull.

Okay, so, life update. Branden actually got hired on at his work full-time a month early, because over his time there it has become obvious that he is by far the best programmer there. His pay went up to $45K and will go up again upon his graduation in December. We're starting to pay off our credit cards in earnest, and making payments on our student loans. Whee! I feel all growed-up. In other news, my manager has gotten a better job and is moving on: I am applying for his position. *quake in me boots* I've never been very good at selling myself. I don't think I'm going to get the job, but sadly, I still can't leave because their insurance policy is so good. *shakes fist* Damn you MS, damn you and your life-limiting required medication!!!

Speaking of MS, last Monday myself and a group of friends went down to Denver to catch Dark Knight on the IMAX. All that day, my left eye had been bothering me, as if there was something in it (which there wasn't). The next day, I couldn't even open my left eye, and having my right eye open for any length of time was torturous. I had completely recovered by the next day, but nonetheless, the trauma was enough to set off another mini MS flare-up. Now, my entire right hand and a good bit of my left are totally numb (which is making this fun to type, let me tell you), and the bottoms of my feet are all pins-and-needles-ey. Course, I hardly notice the feet thing because it's a fairly standard feature of a typical flare-up. The hands thing sucks though.

I just got home last night from a camping trip that started Monday (the second and likely last of the summer). It was ridiculously awesome, at least a good part because I was with a whole bunch of people I really didn't know very well. Carlie, Shad and Matt were there, so I had a good representative of good friends, but then the rest of them were all Shad's friends and family, celebrating two of the group getting married. The location was absolutely beautiful, the weather was, for the most part, ideal, and the company was great. It was awesome to get to hang out with Matt again, too. I was glad to come home, though. I guess camping really isn't my thing.

Funny things happened on the camping trip, but they're a little personal and I don't want anyone who was there accidentally stumbling on my blog and getting all miffed that I blogged about it.

I rode my bike in to work today from home in hopes that the exercise would relieve the MS symptoms. So far, no dice, but I should keep it up because that's typically what exercise does, it just takes time.

My little brother's moving in with a girl! Go Noah! Craziness. I feel old.

Okay. Going bye-bye again, see you all in September *wink*

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

That sound? The Bzzzzzzzzz? that's the drone of my life. I'm updating because Hanna told me to. Truly, I have very little to say.

But, I guess I'll do a short update on what I do have to say. First off, bikes.

My first experience with our new bikes was... and adventure. I had ridden my bike around the block a few times to make sure it worked, then Branden rode it from our house to a bus stop, then from the bus stop to my work, all without incident. However, when I got off work and went to ride it back to the bus stop, the rear tire was flat. This was immediately after I got the bike back from the shop for a full tune-up and etc. Turns out, they didn't replace the tubes. Remember, my bike is ancient--that tube could be 12 years old. I have no idea. Anyway, I took it back to the shop and they generously didn't charge me for labor, though I did have to buy the new tube. >_< Now, when I spin my pedals backwards, at all, the chain does one of two things: if it's on the big gear, it hops off the gear an loops around my pedal. If it's on one of the other two gears, the top strand of chain goes slack and gets stuck between the frame and the rear tire. Branden was looking at it and our theories converge: we think that one of two things is the problem. Either my wheel's not on my bike properly, or the gears are attached to my rear wheel wrong, so that the gears can't spin backwards (or even stay still when I'm walking my bike, or just coasting without pedaling, for example). I'm starting to get really frustrated. But I guess the good news is that the bike still works, even if it's got these chain quirks.

Second, everyone moving in. The third new arrival in our apartment complex is moving in this Saturday. Having the first two around these last couple of weeks has been really awesome, and unless there's yicky drama, I anticipate a year of social whoo-hoo. Unfortunately, the possibility for drama will spike considerably for the next two weeks or so, as our third arrival attempts to get one of the first arrivals into bed and fails...

Hopefully, that won't happen. Can't promise anything though.

So, we (Branden, Sarah, Joe, Steph, Ian, Dan, and I) went camping over the 4th of July. We went up to Wyoming to shoot off fireworks. I'm not going to go through it every moment by miserable moment, but I'll list the highlights:

1. Sarah got allergies as bad or worse than Branden's, but usually doesn't have any allergies at all, so didn't know how to handle them. She was miserable all weekend.
   
2. We had an ideal spot to shoot off fireworks: A huge flat rock. However, when we tried to shoot them off on Friday night, some jackass started yelling at us to "take our fireworks home." OMFG, it was the 4th of July for pete's sake. But, we quit so that we wouldn't have the forest service called on us, since we were camping in a national forest.
   
3. After our failed fireworks attempt, most people went to bed, and Joe and Dan stayed up drinking until 6 am. They drank ALL the liquor that was supposed to last 2 nights for 7 people. >_< Then, they started dragging burning sticks around, trying to fight Branden, and grabbing the saw and shouting that they should go saw more firewood, etc stupid crap.
   
4. So, on Saturday, Sarah, Joe, Branden, and Ian took a field trip to Laramie to get more liquor and other things. The field trip that was supposed to last 1 hour actually lasted 3, and left me and Steph completely alone and bored. (Dan slept most of the day.) Though, I did end up talking to Steph about stuff, which was nice. Nonetheless, it was a long, dry 3 hours since all we had to drink was soda, it was 90 degrees out, and we also had no food. Argh.
   
5. So, they returned with some more liquor (but no water >_<!!!!!!) and we had sandwiches. Then everyone but Sarah and Joe went into the tent and took a nap. Sarah and Joe went for a drive. The rest of us decided that we'd vote to go home when they got back, since it had turned out to be a pretty boring trip so far.
   
6. However, when they finally returned, they had a camp table and a few other things that made it seem stupidly selfish to go home after they spent the money, especially since all 7 of us are in dire straights for funds right now and we knew it was an effort to revitalize the trip.
   
7. So, we stayed. Sarah was in a terrible mood and basically refused to have any fun. We went up and shot off the fireworks that were small and didn't make noise, saving the noisemakers for last. However, when we did get to those, the same jerk-off started yelling at us, so we stopped again.
   
8. So, we went into the tent and set up the table to play some card games. It was, as you might imagine, quite crowded, with Sarah asleep on one side and B & my air mattress tipped up on the other. But, grudgingly, I have to say that the game was fun anyway.
   
9. Then we all went to sleep. We woke up the next day, broke camp, and went home (the process of breaking camp took 2 hours, driving 3). Sarah was again in a terrible mood.
   
10. Overall, I'd rather be playing video games.

Other than that, I've gotten back into art in a big way. My biggest problem has always been taking my sketches and making them "finished works," and this is no exception, but I've definitely been working hard. It's been great.

And work's just... work. It's fine, nothing to report.

We're planning an epic Halloween party. I'm not gonna say more than that for the moment, but... it's epic. People should come.

Ok, bye now!

*Blushes & waves*

Wow, now that someone's watching me--someone who other people watch, no less--I'm feeling the pressure to post. Maybe I should do a life update...


Okay, so I got a tattoo on my birthday. My best friend and I got the same tattoo in different locations on teh body, and it was quite an experience. It's my second tat, but the first was no big deal compared to this one. (My first one was a small, 50-cent-piece-sized Aries symbol on my hip.) I'm very happy to have it, and even knowing the repercussions, I would definitely do it again...

So, apparently, any physical trauma can cause an MS flare-up. My nurse had a patient who stubbed her toe really hard and had a "major exacerbation." I didn't know that at the time, however. Shortly after getting my tattoo, I started experiencing severe numbness from the armpits down. The worst part was that the bottoms of my feet were numb, and trust me when I say that if you haven't experienced it, you could not possibly imagine it. So I finally broke down and called my neurologist, who prescribed a regimen of steroids to bring the swelling in my spine down. Three-day IV of one kind (the name of which is slipping my mind pretty hard-core right now), followed by a two-week oral steroid called Prednisone.

So, a nurse came to my house and was very friendly and nice, and managed to get an IV in my arm after only one failed attempt. This IV was supposed to stay in my arm for three days, and I would change out the IV bag & do all the detailed medical stuff surrounding that. However, like an eejit, I went hiking the day after I got my IV in, and the needle crimped and was no longer usable. So another nurse came to my house, and this guy wasn't nearly as personable, and he stuck me twice with no success and refused to try again, sending me to the ER the next morning. Even the ER nurses had trouble finding a vein; apparently I have "shy" and "very tiny" veins. There was a total of six attempts for two successful IV insertions. I felt like a pincushion. I don't want to sound like a crybaby but getting an IV is incredibly emotionally draining, and every time they tried to get it in it was just a little more so. Especially when they were "digging around" with the needle (quote compliments of Branden) trying to find a vein. It makes you feel inadequate, somehow as if you're doing something wrong, that you should be doing something different or better. And the fact that you know that's irrational doesn't really help the way you feel. ANYWAY...

After the IV ordeal was over, my symptoms were pretty much the same as they had been beforehand. The nurse said that was to be expected. I moved on to the oral steroids. Their side effects included increased appetite, and I remember having hunger cramps continually no matter how much I ate. I bought a bag of oranges and ate four, one right after another. Also, my feet swelled up like tiny balloons. I spent all of the time I wasn't at work with my feet up on pillows. I even propped them up in bed, which is an uncomfortable way to have to sleep all night. Walking around was like torture, not painful exactly but so uncomfortable that I remember changing the way I drove because I didn't want to have to move my feet to brake or accelerate. I thought this was because of swelling, so I went to my PCP to see if they could do anything ($30 copay instead of $50, you see), and all they could tell me was that I wasn't swollen, and the sensation must be nerve-related. So... back to the neurologist I go. I got a prescription for Neurontin, which I am still on, and I've been on it for about six weeks. In the beginning, it definitely made my feet more bearable but not a whole lot more than that. In the last two weeks or so, I've been noticing significant improvement, and all I can say is OMFG FINALLY. (And whoo! I shouldn't take improvement for granted: there are plenty of people who are wheelchair-bound by MS.) I'm hoping to be all back to "normal" in the next week or two, and I think I'll cry with relief if I am.

AND... that brings us to today in terms of my health. Branden and I are about to sign another year lease at our place, bringing our projected total time here to four years; in the meantime, all of our friends are either in the process of moving or about to be moving. We are (or at least I am) helping a whole bunch with that. Two of our good friends (and possibly three!) are moving into our apartment complex (I've actually got mixed feelings about this, but shhh, don't tell anyone), so that'll be like having a party in my pants every day! (Um. Maybe not my pants, exactly. More like, my apartment complex. Much bigger than my pants, one would hope.)

There's an amount of drama in my friends' lives, but I don't really feel like talking about it (plus it's kinda none of my business). Hopefully that blows over soon.

I work at a high-end audio/video store here in Boulder, and that's going fine, nothing really to report other than the fact that they're fascist pigs and definitely don't pay me nearly enough. However, in the good-news sector, Branden recently got an excellent internship in a start-up company; his internship salary is $36k/year, and that'll go up in September (if/)when he becomes a full-time, "real" employee. He's the most flexible and innovative, if not most experienced, programmer in the company and they keep telling him what a good job he's doing.

We just got bikes, and we've both been taking the bus to work (and school, in his case). Bikes will make after-work mobility much easier, and it'll be easier/more fun to go do stuff outside. Built-in exercise! Yesterday B and I went and got bike accessories, including helmets, locks, head/taillights, handle grips, and a pump. The bikes themselves are in the shop, getting their Wellbike exam, and they'll be out no later than tomorrow, and allegedly good as new. The bikes are quite old, ugly, heavy, and low-tech, but I can't even SAY how much better than NO bikes they are.

We've recently started playing D&D 4th Edition, and I've gotta say I like it. I'm also jonesing for some MORE roleplaying; I have little creative outlet and it's killing me. >_< Oh, but speaking of which: My DeviantArt account.

Okay, I think that's it for now. Ciao, peeps, thanks for peeking in.

I love it!

Make a sentence, then post it in my comments:

Your favorite color:
red ---------- My great grand father
green ------- God
purple ------ You
yellow ------ The president
white ------- My family
black ------- I
gold -------- This country
silver ------- My cat
bronze ----- My fish
blue -------- We
orange ----- Zombies
teal --------- Aliens
pink... ---- Satan


How old are you?:
0-10 --------- was(were) born in
11-14 -------- ate
15------------ licked
16 ----------- burned down
17 ----------- will give birth to
18 ----------- was(were) consumed by
19 ----------- will marry
20 ----------- stepped on
21 ----------- will die in
22 ----------- will turn into
23 ----------- worship(s)
24 ----------- invented
25 ----------- will command
26-30 ------- destroyed
31-40 ------- created
41-50 ------- slaughtered
51-60 ------- expected
61-75 ------- wanted
76-infinity -- made

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------the rotten
2-------the yellow
3-------the wrinkled
4-------the treacherous
5-------the processed
6-------the invisible
7-------the delirious
8-------the magical
9-------the horniest
10-------the monstrous
11-------my own
12-------the incredibly horrifying
13-------the holy
14-------the irresistible
15-------the crooked
16-------the pickle flavored
17-------the fattest
18-------the shady
19------- the misfortunate
20-------the undesirable
21-------the insane
22-------the busty
23-------the creamy
24-------the squeaky
25-------the delicious
26-------my sister's
27-------my child's
28-------a red
29-------the greedy
30-------the indicated
31-------the homeless



Current minute on the clock, plus any number you can imagine from 1 to 10:
0-2 ---------Beast
3-5---------Acne
6-8-----------Little girl
9-11---------Nazi helmet
12-14---------Submarine
15-17---------lawyer
18-20---------hobo
21-23---------pirate
24-26--------penguin
27-29--------storm
30-32--------shoelace
33-35---------ninja
36-38---------pants
39-41---------ghost
42-44---------pope
45-47---------elementary teacher
48-50---------whale
51-53---------old man
54-56---------pancake
57-59---------corpse



Current second on the clock?:
0-2 ---------because humanity demanded it
3-5---------because its will save the world from certain doom
6-8-----------because of Hitler's mustache
9-11-----------because of a mathematical error in the matrix
12-14-----------because of my pants
15-17---------because I have a fetish for whales
18-20---------because I need to eat more pills
21-23----------because of YOU!
24-26--------because Satan commands it
27-29--------because life is boring otherwise
30-32---------due to my failure as a carbon based life form.
33-35----------because the curse is upon us
36-38----------because it was my will
39-41----------to save me from eternal damnation
42-44----------because you ate my porridge
45-47----------because god wanted it
48-50----------because I believe in it
51-53----------due to overpopulation.
54-56----------because it's how the world is going to end
57-59----------because I couldn't control myself