So I've gone from blah to enh in moodiness, which, actually is an improvement.

My shoulders are killing me though, which is weird. We must've swapped the pillows around or something.

And I cannot shake this headache, still.

I'm planning to eat something and then go to bed early in the hopes that I can shake enough of this crabby cranky nesting mood so that I don't bite people's heads off at work on Monday.

And may I just add that weekends are too short?

Still in nesting mode.
Blowing off Stars on Ice – head hurts too much to enjoy it.
That is all.

I was awakened this morning, not by our alarm, which had been set for nine am on Friday, because neither of us had wanted to leave bed at eight, but by my aunt calling from Connecticut. To be fair, most people are (or should be) out of bed at ten AM, even on Saturday, but most people don’t routinely stay up til two or three, either.
And at that point I would have gotten up /anyway/ because I had to use the bathroom.
But anyway, she called, and apparently will be here next weekend. And I’m torn, because I’d love to take next Monday off, but she has a history of being unfashionably late/cancelling at the last second/just not showing up. When my grandmother was still alive, she’d send Patti (who is the youngest and therefore the favorite) plane tickets to visit her, and then Patti would cancel at the last minute and later use the tickets for something else.
For five years my grandmother lived with my parents, who took care of her, hired a nurse to spend the day with her when they had to work, and Patti, who happened to call one time when she was alone for five minutes had the nerve to chastise my parents for not being the 24/7 entertainment committe. When asked if she’d like to take my grandmother in, my has-a-PhD-from-Stanford-and-had-her-first-teaching-job-at-Yale-but-had-to-quit-because-otherwise-she’d-have-been-fired-for-not-publishing aunt, who now makes ends meet by teaching part time at Wesleyan and editing papers for the chair of the Yale English department, and lives in an apartment that doesn’t have a bathroom, because she “just isn’t cut out for real work, the way you and your mother are, Zoetrope,” said she was too busy.
So, I probably won’t take time off, and if she really does deign to drive the twenty minutes from the overpriced decorated-by-folks-who-have-all-their-taste-in-their-mouths house of her friends Joan and Marty in Palo Alto, she’ll have to fit her visit into my schedule.
Because, you know, I love the woman, and she’s my godmother (failed at that, didn’t she?) and stuff, but her selfishness pisses me off.
On the other hand, sometimes she can be funny. Like when her ex-husband (who is a tanner buffer version of Chris Reeve in his Superman days, and whom I really miss) cheated on her with some 18-year-old (whom he later married), she called the chick’s mother on the phone and said, “Do you know that your daughter is fucking my husband?”
But those cool moments are few, and far between.
Continue reading →

I'm in a blah mood today – but I think it's the light. I've done my minimum One Productive Thing (cleaned the kitchen) but it's after two and I'm still wandering around the house in sweats. Not Good.

I hate it when the sky is all murky, the way it was until about an hour ago, because I feel like the world hasn't quite awakened yet, and it makes my eyes all wiggy.

Although, when such skies are accompanied by wind and rain and thunder and lightning, my whole perception changes and I revel in the raw power of nature.

So maybe it's just that I don't like indecisive weather.

Whatever. I'm babbling again, which means I really need to have someone lock up my keyboard.

Okay, so after more than three months of gyrations, conversations, demonstrations and expectations, we have our T1 installed, which means no more shared dial-up connection, and far less cursing.

(It also means that certain MUSH characters who have been kinda scarce will be less so, but we won't talk about that.)

Fuzzy's still having issues getting the wireless hub to work, so I can't net from bed yet. I guess that's the weekend project.

Still, it's good to have decent access again. Next up: A new computer.

Please be advised that “I'm sorry,” is not always synonymous with “I apologize.”

Sometimes it means, “I sympathize.”

That is all.

I'm having one of those days where I'm on the edge of tears for absolutely no reason other than messed up chemistry, or something, and I keep having this urge to go find a rock to crawl under.

And I'm annoyed with myself, because, with the exception of really weird light outside my office window this afternoon, and friend I feel disconnected from and really miss, there's nothing specific wrong.

I hate moods like this.
I hate not being able to break out of moods like this.
I hate that even chocolate does nothing for me when I'm stuck in such a mood.

*sigh*
Pity-party's over now.
Sorry.

We went to Cost Plus tonight, ostensibly because I needed to add something to the Christmas gift I haven't yet sent to my friend Jen in Colorado.

(Actually, I haven't sent her last year's gift either, but that's because I ran out of time and had FTD deliver something instead.)

You know you are a True Shopaholic when, even though you have a perfectly good unsent gift (it's bath stuff in freesia, her favorite), you feel obligated to go buy something else.

The problem is that Cost Plus, which is a dangerous store any time of year, is doubly dangerous in the first week of January. Example: all the glass Christmas ornaments are on sale. I collect glass Christmas ornaments.

You know you are a True Shopaholic when you buy ten new glass ornaments (I especailly like the Zeppelin and the Typewriter) despite the fact that you didn't put a tree up this year, and may be travelling next year as well. But they were half price, and therefore you were obligated to buy them.

We won't discuss the martini set (a glass shaker/pitcher and four glasses for $20) that I passed up despite the fact that I really need martini glasses, because I don't own any.

But we will feel as though I redeemed myself by waiting until after dinner to buy groceries (because when you go while hungry, really odd things end up in the cart), although now I'm all giddy because not only is Claritin finally available in Safeway, over the counter, it's also available in it's GENERIC FORM, which is about half as expensive.

You know you're a True Shopaholic when you get giddy over sales at the grocery store, and use said specials to justify buying a fluffy magazine, just because. (It's Marie Claire, if you must know).

We'll conveniently overlook the nifty glass bottles full of Aveda products that somehow managed to come home with me yesterday, because everyone knows that since they don't put price tags on the bottles they don't count, and even if they did have price tags they still wouldn't count because health and beauty aids are only purchased a few times a year, and are, like clothing, necessities.

You know you are a True Shopaholic when you can rationalize any purchase.

Those little mini-gifty things that Barnes and Noble and Borders are both pushing are dangerously addictive.

Oh, admit it. You know the ones I mean: The little 2×2 boxes that contain mini-spa kits, or desktop fountain kits, or Zen garden kits or, or, or….

I just wish they'd stop putting the pricetags on the back, where the descriptions are.

I spent yesterday at my salon. Well, not all of yesterday, but a good chunk.

I'd promised myself a facial to help my skin recover from the airplane trips to and from France (air travel really dehydrates me), so Erin spent the day alternately painting my face with cool masks, and steaming them off, and doing deep massage of my neck and shoulders. I tend to avoid massages, even though I love them, because I'm not very comfortable with strangers touching me, but I liked Erin from the first. She's old enough that I don't feel like I'm dealing with a teenager (I hate that), and really gentle. And she doesn't lecture about not moisturizing, and stuff. This is key.

So, what I love about Aveda products is that they're all natural and nothing smells perfumey. Even the perfume. And they ask if there's anything you don't like, which means, I got to have lots of Citrus and Mint smells, and absolutely no Jasmine or Sandalwood, both of which I detest. And when I told her I was phobic about pressure on my eyes, because of 17 years of contact-lenses and then lasik, she noted it, and made a point of being careful. Go, Erin.

She did a foot mask, as well, and we chatted about how feet are totally unappreciated, and I said that my feet totally dictate my mood. (The foot massage helped loosen up a lot of the congestion in my sinuses, too, yay for reflexology, as did the actual facil massage).

After a break, and some of their mint tea, I had a manicure. No polish, just shaping and buffing. As Fuzzy or can affirm, the average sixth-grader has bigger hands than I do, so colored polish usually just makes my hands look even smaller. (I do love OPI's color # N11, though. It's sort of a mauve with copper glitter. And in summer I use OPI red on my toes.)

Afterward, feeling all goofy and relaxed, I met Fuzzy at the creperie in the square. I love that it's January, and we can still eat outside, although I was grateful for the patio heaters at the end. We went to Best Buy to start looking at TiVo stuff, but haven't actually bought it yet. I'm reluctant about it, and not sure why. I think it's because I'll find out that I watch more television than I think I do.

Chicago the movie based on the musical, opens at Camera Seven this week, so we might go see it. Or we might not.