Month: February 2000

the Pill) Sunday, and the nausea started Monday. I’m hoping it (the nausea, not the Pill) goes away soon. Nausea sucks. Fred made an extra $900 last week. How, you ask, did he make such a large sum of money? He sold stuff on ebay, of course. Among other things, he sold dvds we have no desire to ever watch again, a laser disc player, a large number of laser discs, and a projector. All stuff we never use. Pretty good haul – almost enough money to pay off last month’s Amex bill. Next up for sale on Ebay will be his collection of cookie jars. He went through a collecting phase a couple of years ago, and now he’s ready to sell. He’s got, I dunno, fifteen or so of them, and they’re taking up a 7-foot bookshelf which could be put to better use. Ebay is the shit, man. Did everyone watch Who wants to marry a multi – millionaire last night? I wasn’t nearly as creeped out as I thought I’d be. Yes, it was basically a pagent – was the bathing suit segment really necessary? – but I actually found myself liking 3 of the 5 finalists. Naturally, he didn’t choose any of the 3 I liked, but I didn’t have to marry a complete stranger, so more power to him. I was so nervous when it was time for him to make his choice that I couldn’t even look directly at the TV. It’s the bitchypoo way of life – if I’m not looking directly at it, it isn’t happening. None of the Unchosen seemed all that heartbroken, I noticed. I could swear I even saw a few relieved faces. ]]>

not believe Thorne married Macy. What is he, insane? I can’t stand that damn Macy, she’s always fawning over Thorne and touching him and calling him Honey. Gag me. And I wish Eric would just fall off the face of LA. Bastard. And how is it that I’ve been praying desperately for Rick to find out the truth, and now I feel sorry for Amber? I hated her from the moment I saw her, and now I get all teary-eyed when I see her crying. I loathe that smug, bitchy little Kimberly. She needs a good smack upside the head. Just so you know. ]]>

V.D.: Searching for a Cure. I woke up this morning feeling nauseous. I wandered around the house, trying various cures ("Maybe I just need to go to the bathroom!"), but nothing helped. I went into the kitchen to grab a couple of boxes of Gevalia coffee to take to work with me (Fred has a coffee maker in his office, and nothing but the best for my baby), saw a baggie full of chocolate chip cookies, and that was all she wrote. I stumbled across the kitchen and barfed my brains out in the sink (shaddup, I cleaned it out after). Still shaky, I called Fred and told him I’d either be in to work late, or not at all, and I’d let him know either way. Naturally, as soon as I told him I’d been sick, he jokingly spazzily shouted "You’re pregnant, aren’t you?!" Gad. Anyway, after sipping a coke and eating a handful of cheerios to settle my stomach, I took a short nap with the kitten and felt marginally better. I still feel nauseous and haven’t eaten anything since the cheerios and a couple of cokes, but there’s no danger of my hurking up bile all over my desk. At least, I hope not. It was a pretty quiet weekend. As I mentioned in my last entry, the spud spent Friday night at her friend Maria’s house. Well, I found out this morning that Maria’s parents took Maria and the spud to the mall, and while they were there, Maria decided it would be a good idea to spit from the 2nd level of the mall onto, as the spud put it, "a crystal-making guy." The spud suggested that it wouldn’t be a very good idea, but Maria did it anyway. The security cameras caught her doing it, and a security guard came over and gave Maria hell, then spoke to her parents, who also gave Maria hell. Is it wrong that hearing about that incident gives me a whole new respect for Maria? Aside from doing a little laundry and getting groceries, I spent most of the weekend reading – finished the John Saul book and read Nice in about three hours – and scanning work receipts, then burning them to a cd. Have I mentioned how much I love my scanner? It rocks, bigtime.

There were other things I was going to blabber on about today, but the nausea has come back full-force, and I’m concentrating on not sending a huge explosion of bile at my monitor. Hopefully I’ll be feeling better tomorrow. But I wouldn’t count on it! Take care, y’all. —–

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wretch/ retch to use correctly. No less than three times this week have I read the sentence (roughly) "I thought I was gonna wretch." No you didn’t. You can’t use wretch as a verb. Wretch, as defined by merriam-webster, means 1 : a miserable person : one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune 2 : a base, despicable, or vile person. You cannot come into my house, look at the litter box and wretch. You can look at it and become a wretch if you so desire, but that’s your prerogative. No, when you see something gag-worthy, you retch. Retch, people. Definition?: to make an effort to vomit; also : VOMIT. Ah, now, that makes sense, doesn’t it? You would certainly retch if you were faced with the nasty, germ-ridden box of litter located next to the washer in my house. And I’m the wretch who has to clean the damn thing. Everyone clear, now? Good. Don’t let me see you using the wrong word again. Have you ever noticed that if you read or say the same word over and over, it ceases to make any kind of sense? I’m looking up there where it says retch and thinking, "That doesn’t look like a real word. It looks like a made-up word." Does, doesn’t it? Say it to yourself ten times. Retchretchretch. Anyway. Here’s a cute picture of the kitten, because I know you simply don’t get enough of those. If you look closely, you’ll see that her right pupil is noticeably bigger than her left. I’m not sure what’s up with that, but it makes her look a tad brain-damaged. Which would explain a lot. And here’s a picture of Spanky, sitting on top of my monitor, next to my Coke reindeer. He’s such a sweetie. Every night he jumps on my desk looking for love, and every night I pet him half-heartedly and turn my attention back to my beloved computer. And he sits and stares at me with love in his eyes. Well, that’s not really love in his eyes in this picture. That’s more of a feed me, bitch look. But he loves me! Really, he does. So, the weekend is upon us, and the spud is spending the night at her friend Maria’s house. Maria is from Guatemala, and I just can’t understand a word the child says. I’ve mentioned before my difficulty understanding those with accents, and Maria is no exception. The spud’s social life is picking up this year. I’m not sure whether it’s the new school (Madison rezoned last year, and she’s going to a different school from the one she attended for the previous two years) or the fact that she’s in fifth grade and girls get more social at that age, or what, but last year she only had one friend whom she saw outside of school with any regularity, and this year there are three or more who call all the time. Heh. "All the time." The phone rings for her about three times a week, and I consider that "all the time." With the spud gone for the evening, you might wonder what Fred and I are doing. Chasing each other naked through the house with whipped cream and ice cubes? Watching porn and doing it (you know, IT) on the floor of the living room? Taking this opportunity to do it (IT) in every room of the house? Well, no. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have two words for you: period, and yeast infection. Okay, that’s three words, but you get my point. This fine evening, we ate McDonald’s in front of the boob tube (yes, I know, we eat too much fast food. I’ll take that under advisement, alrighty?) and watched Stir of Echoes. It’s pretty damn good – I found at several points during the movie that I’d been grinding my teeth out of nervousness. I recommend it. (The movie, not grinding your teeth) After the movie, we – can you stand the excitement?! – made the grocery list for tomorrow, and here we are, each in front of our own computer. At least Fred’s getting something productive done – I’ve been sitting here and typing, then surfing for a bit, then typing a little more. It ain’t exciting, but I like it fine, thankyou. I may or may not update tomorrow and Sunday. I haven’t decided yet, and I intend to just go where the day takes me this weekend. Y’all have a good weekend, now. ]]>

/server, but typed several instead. I never fail to type Fredex instead of Fedex, but that one’s understandable. I end up having to backspace and retype several times in any given paragraph, and it’s annoying as hell. Maybe it means I’m not giving my full attention to what I’m typing (apparently so – I just had to back up and insert the not in that sentence). Or maybe my hands are developing early-onset Alzheimer’s. God, I hope I never have Alzheimer’s. The spud has to learn the Preamble to the Constitution in the next three weeks, and she’s spazzing. It’s five sentences, and she swears up and down that she’ll never be able to memorize it in time. Her main concern is all the big words, so Fred tried to help out. He put the American Rock tape in the vcr, and played the part where they sing the Preamble. The spud was not swayed from her opinion that she can never learn it all in time, so Fred subjected her to the "If you give up instead of trying, you’ll never get anywhere in life!" speech. I’m not sure what effect, if any, it had on her. Thank god tomorrow’s Friday. As usual when I take a day off in the middle of the week, today flew by, but I’m still looking forward to the weekend. ]]>

driving me out of my mind. The kitten has been incredibly clingy today, and not only took a nap with me, but has been following me around, not letting me out of her sight for a second. She spent all last night snuggled up next to me, until 4:30 when she insistently climbed up so that her fuzzy little belly was draped across my face, and her sharp little claws were resting on my face. Naturally, she gets so happy in this position that she begins kneading her paws on my face, until I get annoyed at the incessant pinprick feeling on my face (hey, it hurts!) that I make her get down. Okay, so I don’t have much to say today. I’ll see you back here tomorrow night. G’night! —–]]>

real doctor, as we always say, and not one of those "doc in a box" doctors who are so conveniently located around the corner) and charmed a 1:50 appointment out of them. So I left work early, went to the spud’s school to pick her up, and made it to Dr. Judy’s right at the stroke of 1:50. We only waited for ten or fifteen minutes before going back for the weighing and blood-pressure taking, etc. They did a flu test, which involves – have I mentioned this? – sticking a long-ass q-tip up your nose and rolling it around. The spud was admirably stoic throughout it all, and the upshot is that she has the flu. Dr. Judy prescribed Relenza for all three of us (Fred, the spud, and I, that is). I swear upon all that is holy that I’m going to get a flu shot next fall, and so is the spud. I’m tired of this being sick crap. Tomorrow, I’m going to go see Dr. Judy for my ear, out of which I still cannot hear anything but constant white noise. Fred swears up and down that Dr. Judy can fix it, because "Dr. Judy can fix anything!" Two years ago, Fred was having serious back pain, and saw doctor after doctor, and only Dr. Judy was able to figure out that it was "chest wall pain" and treated it successfully. She’s also very nice, which in my opinion is a big plus. Because I spent part of the afternoon sitting around a doctor’s office, we had McDonald’s for dinner and rented a couple of movies. We watched Blue Streak, which stars Martin Lawrence and cutie-pie Luke Wilson. It wasn’t a bad way to kill an hour and a half. Dr. Judy decreed that the spud shouldn’t go to school tomorrow, so I’ll be staying home also – and lemme tell you, my heart’s breaking over that. I intend to stay up late, sleep late, and do a lot of nothing for most of the day tomorrow, though I have to run a few errands along with my trip to Dr. Judy’s office. Y’all have a good humpday! —–]]>

Cool, isn’t it? It’s like a valentine for me from the kitties! Really, what other journaller will thrill you with pictures from the litter box? Fred’s dad and stepmom came over Saturday night to watch Heart and Souls with us. I’ve seen the musical parts from this movie about 45,000 times, because my husband is nothing if not obsessive, but I hadn’t seen the actual movie itself. It’s pretty good, but I don’t think I adore it quite as much as Fred does. I don’t think anyone adores it as much as Fred does. Have I mentioned that he thinks he lives in a musical? —–]]>

See.” I grinned up at him from my nice, warm bed and said "What do you see?" And my husband, who thinks he lives in a musical, burst into song, and to the tune of "Do You See What I See?", sang the following: Do you see what I see? My wife doesn’t love me very much She won’t bring me my lunch My beans My rice And tabasco sauce If I miss it, what a great loss If I miss it, what a great loss My god, I love that man. The whole time he sang, I rolled around on the bed and laughed. He’s so damn funny sometimes. Okay, I’m off until Monday. Go back and read some of the old stuff if you miss me that much! Have a good weekend, y’all. —–]]>

I hate those bitches. Just so you know. Have I ever mentioned that Fred and I sleep in separate rooms? When I first moved to Alabama and in with Fred, we had separate rooms because the spud had no idea that we were romantically involved, and for the first year, we referred to Fred as our “roommate.” After we’d been in Alabama for a year, I approached the spud with “What would you think if Fred and I wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend?” She grinned and said “Not good!” It took a few months, but she eventually accepted the fact that we were “dating” (though there were, of course, no actual “dates”) – and it was probably another three or four months before Fred actually kissed me in front of her. Hmmm. I seem to have gotten off-track. Where was I? Oh yes, separate beds. So while we were still in the apartment, I would occasionally attempt a “sleepover” in Fred’s room. I usually stayed for an hour before his snoring drove me back to my own room. The only thing I hated about having separate rooms was that after we were done with our nightly cuddling and chatting, I had to get up and leave his room to make the (albeit short) trek back to mine. Let me tell you, it was a lonely feeling, one that I didn’t care for at all. The summer of ’97, while the spud was visiting my parents, he and I went to Florida for four days. Which meant we had to share a bed, since two rooms would have been way more than we could afford. The first night, he snored so loudly that I took my pillow and a blanket and tried to make a go of it on the bathroom floor. When he realized his snoring was keeping me awake, he kindly went out on the balcony and slept most of the night in a lounge chair out there. I think he did that most nights – I don’t know how else we would have ever made it through the trip. When we moved into the house, we decided that we would share the master bedroom. I was sure that the first few nights would be rough, but once I got used to the noise, it would be smooth sailing. Then something happened I hadn’t counted on. He was bothered by my snoring. After a few weeks of not sleeping very well at all, he started getting up in the night and going into the guest bedroom. I was sleeping like a rock for the most part, which was the problem. I snore like a drunk longshoreman on the best of nights, it would appear. Anyway, the guest bedroom quickly became Fred’s bedroom. These days, we lay in bed and talk for at least half an hour, then he gets up and goes into his bedroom. Funny enough, since we’ve gotten married, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest to be sleeping in separate rooms. I love having the king-size bed to myself, though he’s suggested more than once that I should be sleeping in the guest bedroom so he can have the big bed. And he can just keep dreaming. —–]]>