BEDA6: I'm So Awesome*

hi blog!!!!

are those enough exclamation marks? cuz if not, just let me know. i can totally add more, no problem.

i had to go to the doctor today. well, i didn't HAVE to go, i made an appointment because i have a (now waning) sinus infection and i wanted to make sure i was doing the right things to make it go away. problem is, my "Primary Physician" (Dr. Buschmann. what a name!) wasn't there. so i had to see the female doctor. as it turns out, way back when her schedule was too full for me to select her as my doctor, it was luck. she sucks. way to go female doctor! make it so i prefer a man. thanks for that contribution to feminism.

anyway, she kept saying, "so can we agree to this: can we agree that (medicine i should take and when i should take it)." the problem with that is it implies there was some kind of disagreement. there wasn't. i literally said i think i have a sinus infection and this is what i've done so far, she asked if it hurt when she tapped on my nose, i told her it doesn't now but it did the other day, and she said, "so can we agree..." what???

*sigh* so annoying.

so i'll see my actual doctor at the beginning of next month.

so, nothing else really happened today. i'll spare you the gory details.

* the title, as you must have noticed by now, is completely unrelated to the content of this post. it is also just a joke. obviously.

unexpected rant

ok blog. so, i wrote part of this post earlier. you'll see why when you get to that part. in the mean time, i'm writing this as fast as i can so i can get to sleep cuz... well i'm always staying up to late cuz i'm some sort of masochist. like, a masochist who likes causing myself the mental pain of only being able to survive a work day by chugging caffeine. no, i don't understand it either.

anyway, here's what i wrote earlier. more of the normal babble to follow.

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3:45pm
oh, blog. i was going to wait till i got home to update you on my entire day, but some things you have to get out while they're fresh.

i just got THE rudest call EVER! (i'm answering the phone at work until we get a receptionist.)

this guy calls from some center for abused women and children. and i'm like, "what is the call regarding... besides... that?" and he's like, "what didn't you understand about the question?" already, i think he's an asshole. "well, are you looking for a donation, or... what?" "i asked to speak to the owner." "well, (slight pause as i choose my words) if this is a solicitation, then that won't matter." "are you a college graduate? because it doesn't sound like you are."

i. was. FURIOUS!

"yes, i am. and now i'm hanging up on you because you are rude."

i wasn't furious because he questioned my education. like, i'm not offended personally. i'm offended that he assumes that anyone answering the phone is uneducated. i'm offended that he assumes that someone without a college degree is lesser than. and i'm offended that he thought that he could call me out and bully me. people who think like that are so sickening!

but the worst part isn't the fact that i had to deal with someone like that. the worst part is that abused women and children have someone like that speaking on their behalf. they'd be better off with no representation at all!

also, i would be remiss not to say: how many people do you know who go around asking if a call is a "solicitation." not that non-college graduates don't know the word, but it's less likely that they will use it in a common phone exchange. if he weren't such a power-tripping imbecile he would have been clued in to my education level just from my vernacular. *sigh* so MANY morons in the world!
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so yeah. i was really upset at that particular moment. and i mean, seriously, why is that guy allowed to call anyone? it's too bad we don't have caller ID at work or i would have complained to his manager.

so the rest of my day was mainly uneventful. i watched the first two episodes of the new season of United States of Tara when i got home. i couldn't talk myself into the 1hr 40 min. long series premiere of Borgias.

what's that? you've never heard of Borgias? don't worry about it. don't even Google it. seriously. you'll probably be better off. that's right. the seemingly non-stop advertisements put me off it that much. that and Nurse Jackie. you wanna hear my impression of the last season of Nurse Jackie? "You're a drug addict." "You're a drug addict." "You're a drug addict." "Admit you have a problem." "You didn't tell anyone you had a husband?" "How long are you going to keeps this secret?" "You're a drug addict."

what's that you say? i didn't see the last season of Nurse Jackie??? didn't need to. Showtime insisted upon showing me an add before every episode of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING I WATCHED! ...ok. maybe i'm being a little dramatic. it wasn't everything. it was interspersed with ads for Borgias. i pretty much know the story line for the first half of the season. and i'm sure, if they continue their 15 minute blocks of ads after every show, i'll get to see the highlights of the second half as well.

what happened to the good old days when "premium" channels only showed quick teasers for their shows and got back to the programming. fucking TV.

anyway, it's 10pm, i'm really tired and this whole blog has been a ranty mess. one topic more pointless than the next. i mean, honestly, i didn't intend to rant at all. all i was gonna say was i watched United States of Tara, that i like that show despite it's goofiness, and that i'm gonna go to bed. and then that whole rant just launched a surprise attack!

and though i stand by every word of my other rant, it was also spontaneous and unintentional.

yeah, that was my roundabout (and rather long-winded) way of saying sorry for all the whining. i'll try to be a little more stable tomorrow.

Mondays are Awesome (no really!)

blogging before i get to tired and this becomes BEODA (Blog Every Other Day in April). not that there's anything wrong with blogging every other day, but then it would be pronounced bee-oh-duh, and that just sounds dumb.

i did not go to sleep until, like, 1:30am. because i'm dumb, obviously.

when i do my hair, i sleep in a bonnet dryer like this:

it usually dries my hair in no time. it also sometimes gets so hot it burns me, but i'm a freak and sleep through it.* (i've started waking up when i start to feel too hot. no worries!)

last night i apparently took it off (half asleep and with no recollection of the event, as usual**) too soon and had to spend half an hour with my regular, hand-held hair dryer. even so, i still had the worst hair day ever. :/

don't you love Monday mornings? i TOTALLY do! *copious amounts of sarcasm*

at least i got more of my awesome caffeinated cocoa in the mail today. so that was good.

oh yeah! and i made a vlog!


well, i'm tired and i'm going to bed. see you tomorrow! :D

* seriously. who can sleep through LITERALLY being burned??? what the fuck is wrong with my nervous system?!?

** i sleep like the dead. you could literally pick me up and drop me and i won't wake up. i know from what people have told me they've done in attempts to wake me up. i've also, on occasion, had entire conversations in my sleep (phone, in person, whatever) and have no memory of it when i wake up.

uh....

time has gotten away from me! posting now! eeeee!

Yesterday

yesterday I inexplicably fell asleep at 10:30pm. which means I didn't sit down to write a blog post. so I'll write two today. as for this one, I have no idea what I was gonna ramble about yesterday. I had a plan yesterday, too. ah well.
so once again I'm finding that I want to do 10 things, but I only have time for 5. I think I'm gonna have to work out some kind of time management plan.
by the way, I'm writing this from my phone in bed. which is probably how I would've ended up writing it yesterday had I not fallen asleep. :/
I must mention that it feels kinda weird not feeling guilty about having missed the second day. not writing a whole paragraph berating myself. instead of "oh no!" it's "oops! *giggle.*" which is much better, really.
so now I think I need to start working on my podcast. gotta plan everything from the topics to possible guests. all the best episodes had a firm structure.
oh, did I ever mention we've been syndicated. our show can be heard every Tues. and Thurs. at 3pm EDT. on freekradio.com. (so many abbreviations in that sentence!)
well I'm gonna go have what will probably be a very boring day. but near the end I'll write another blog that you will hopefully find somewhat interesting.

BEDA1 - A New Beginning

alright. well. it's 10:30 and if i procrastinate much longer, i'll have failed BEDA on the first day, which is unprecedented for me. and, though i'm all up for trying new things, i don't see myself enjoying that in any way.

i just imagined myself in that scenario as i typed the last sentence. just looking at the clock at 12:30am, realizing i was supposed to have written a blog, and just feeling like an utter and complete failure and being really bummed out and regretful and wishing i could push back the clock. now, i'm pretty sure that was a run-on sentence and also that it seems really over-dramatic, but sadly it's true. i would feel really bad about myself for at least a minute. and i might even be put off the entire project at that point, i'd probably be so disheartened.

in conclusion, i am writing now, and i'm going to make a fair go of "winning" BEDA. (more on my quotation marks in a moment.)

so, other than beda beginning today, there really aren't any other "new beginnings" as one would assume from the title. i just wanted to start things off with a bang and figured a dramatic title was the best way to do it.

so, okay, having done BEDA and "Blaugust" last year, i can now come at this with a strategy. and really it's more of an anti-strategy. being that i've known myself intimately my entire life,* i've gotten to know certain things about myself such as the fact that if i make a big deal out of something and put pressure on myself about it, i increase my chances for failure significantly. (oh! my sentence structure is so... oh, it's so bad! but i just can't be bothered to edit it properly. if i do, it'll become this perfectionist game and i won't finish in time, i know it!)

so, in short, i'm just gonna write a blog every day. i'm not gonna plan it out and think of topics ahead of time. i'm not gonna worry about repeat topics or if it's funny or clever or... well any of the regular** bullshit i worry about. (i know what you're thinking. you see no evidence of that in my other blog posts. but you know, i'm like, on the short bus of writers. and it's really not nice to make fun of kids on the short bus!) instead, i'm not going to worry about anything. i'm removing all of the pressures that i imagine for myself. i'm just gonna write a fucking blog every day, and if it's shit, i'm not going to care. mostly because i've just owned up to it ahead of time, and if you hate it, you can't say i didn't warn you.

and here, this paragraph right here, i will come back to the parenthetical promise i made earlier to talk about why i put quotes around the word "winning" in reference to BEDA. see, when we*** miss a day during this project, we say we failed. but we don't say we "won" BEDA if we wrote every day. it's not a competition. it's just an experience. no one looks at your blog if you miss a day (or quit completely, as is sometimes apt to happen) and goes, "aw! they failed at BEDA. they clearly suck at this." but whenever you see the next blog post after someone misses a day, they totally berate themselves! (i'm guilty of this, too.) they talk about how they failed, or they suck, or they apologize. and, as a reader i'm not like, "you did fail, and it does kind of suck, but i'm glad you recognize your error. all is forgiven." no! i always think the person is being a bit hard on themselves. it's just a... a game really. a goal. can you do it? and there's a million reasons (like, you know, normal daily life) why you might not succeed. but that actually isn't really a bad thing. it's just a thing.

so, to anyone reading my BEDA posts this year and participating as well, please don't feel bad and say you failed if you miss a day (or possibly quit altogether). you have nothing to be ashamed of, and i promise not to judge you for it.

now that i've finished that all important rant that i was all gung-ho to write when i started, it just seems kinda pretentious and corny and stupid. but, i started this post by saying i wouldn't get all caught up in the content and editing and criticizing myself... well, i'll criticize myself, but i'm still gonna freakin' post it.

ok, i'm gonna go read some BEDAs and watch some VEDAs. see ya here tomorrow. ...except not here literally. cuz it would be weird if i just kept adding to the same post tomorrow instead of making a new one.

* wow! that sounds kinda like some kind of sly reference to masturbation. and it's not. that would be kind of weird if, for my entire life, even before i had a libido to speak of, i had been masturbating. this would be a post about the need for hormone therapy then, i think.

** i was going to write "normal," but let's face it, probably nothing regarding me and my blogging/writing habits is normal. it's certainly not grammatical in any case.

*** those of us who participate in BEDA and/or V(log)EDA.

Writing Exercise

don't read this. seriously.

it's really long and rambly and mostly unedited cuz it's meant as a writing exercise. if you read past this point and are disappointed (which i mean, honestly, this is my blog so when doesn't that happen when you read this? you're clearly a glutton for punishment.) don't blame me. cuz you can't say i didn't warn you.

...really? you're still reading? you're serious about this? ok, your funeral. or well, perhaps your mild headache. this writing isn't up to par for killing. (it's not even epically bad! it's just monotonous pablum. terrible right? WHY are you reading this?) ok, here it is:

“I feel really crappy today.” I texted my mother when she asked me how I was today. That was around lunch time on Friday. I started coughing more and more. I started feeling fatigued. My awesome caffeinated cocoa, even spiked with coffee, was having only a marginal effect. There was only 30 minutes of work left. I could make another super-caffeinated cocoa coffee to get me through it, or just go home. While i was confident the cocoa coffee would work, I was less confident about surviving my drive home afterward. I wasn’t confident about making the drive home now.

Somehow I made it home, coughing all the way. Mom had dinner on the table. I said I just wanted to go to bed. She said, “Well, come eat first.” She could probably already tell that once I was in bed I was staying there. I listened to her and sat at the counter. Steak, rice and green beans. I wanted fresh squeezed lemon and ginger. I was too fatigued to get it, so I just ate it as it was. In retrospect, I could have just asked for it, but my foggy brain couldn’t work that out at the time. I changed my clothes and went to bed. And slept.

My skin was at that extra-sensitive level you only feel when you’re sick, which makes you super susceptible to cold and barely able to handle the feeling of your soft blankets grazing your skin. And with the fever you don’t want blankets at all because it’s too hot and any clothing feels like too much clothing. (I am VERY pro-clothing, so this is a very strong statement.) But you’re feeling these things simultaneously, so you don’t know which impulse to follow first. I realized my feet were burning up. Like I felt I might die if I didn’t do something to cool down my feet immediately. So I took off my socks and stuck my feet out from under the blankets, exposing them to the cool air. Even so, it took a minute for my feet to cool to a tolerable temperature. When they did and I could stand to keep them under the blankets again, I felt one of my feet touch my leg and noticed how warm it was. My feet are very rarely warm. Poor circulation, whatever. My feet are just cold. Even when they’re warm they’re still noticeably colder than the rest of my body. This is how I knew I had a fever. I turned over and went back to sleep.

My eyes felt heavy. Everything felt heavy. Everything had a dull ache in it. It didn’t so much ache to move as just ached to be. Just having the limb meant it was going to hurt. Moving didn’t hurt more, it was just a lot of effort. My brain was too groggy to read a book and I don’t think my eyes could take the effort. Besides, sitting up and finding a comfortable position to read in was impossible, seeing as no position was comfortable. I tried to check twitter. Between long heavy blinks, strained eyes took in the status updates. Chris Hardwick would be on The Soup. I like Chris Hardwick. I turned it on. I propped up my pillows so that they would support me in a sitting position. I forced my eyes to look at the screen. It took all my energy. When I blinked, I kept my eyes closed for as long as it was possible for you to still be considered watching something. I closed my eyes during the commercial breaks, listening intently for when the show came back. I didn’t watch and process in the usual sense. I kind of just absorbed. Chris was only on for a moment to plug his show. Literally hopped into the frame, talked for a moment, then hopped back out of the frame. And the show ended a few minutes after that. I lay back and closed my eyes, exhausted from the effort of watching the show. I was disappointed. So much effort for only a moment. I would have tweeted a complaint, but I knew he would literally feel bad. (on his podcast he always talks about feeling bad after reading stuff like that.) And I already felt bad enough. No need to cause more misery. I slept for a few more hours. I remember waking up a few times. Talking to my mom, or rather telling her I couldn’t talk because it would just make me cough. I found I also couldn’t talk because my throat perpetually needed cleared and my voice was nearly gone. It took so long and so much effort just to prepare my throat enough to get a few words out, and then I’d have a coughing fit. Prep, half a phrase, coughing fit, prep, finish phrase, coughing fit. Exhausting. Also, it’s hard to remember what the hell you’re even talking about when it takes over a minute to get a sentence out. Also, my mind really couldn’t handle a full conversation at the moment. I could take in information, with effort, but processing that information and coming up with a response was just asking too much. I also remember my mom giving me vitamins. And then I slept. Whatever else happened until noon on Saturday I was not conscious to report.

Despite needing to pee like mad, my body was not motivated. Only the knowledge that I didn’t want to pee on myself got me into the bathroom. And even then, just barely.

All I wanted was to get back into bed. Part of my brain wanted to be awake and think and do things. Everything else wanted to go back to sleep.

“I have movies we can watch!” said my mother. Movies, at this point, were far to much effort. First I would have to keep my eyes open for the full hour and a half. (A thirty minute show put me out for 2 hours.) Second I would have to follow the story. (Not sure I was capable of that.) And finally I would have to process the whole thing. (That was asking too much.)

Instead I listened to an audio book about vampires, zombies and ghouls. It was like lots of books. Not great writing, but an interesting enough story. Ya know, like everything I write. Like whatever I’ll end up with if I ever finish any of the stuff I’m writing. I nearly wrote the word “novel” but, jesus, that sounds pretentious. Good writers write novels. I’m not a good writer.

Whatever it is that I write, assuming I finish it, I suppose it will be called a novel. But I won’t like it. If you notice things like this at all then you will have noticed that I’ve capitalized my sentences and my “I’s.” Ya know, used proper grammar. There is a reason for this.

Part of this blog is just my blog and you’ll read it and hopefully be mildly entertained. (Too ambitious??? Sorry.) But part of this blog is a writing exercise. You may notice the tense change and repetitive language. And I usually correct things like that in my blogs. But right now I don’t care cuz it’s a writing exercise.

So anyway, that book was what? 5? 8 hours long? And I just laid in bed and listened to it. And I was glad I had it. Because doing anything else would have been exhausting.

At some point I logged into Skype and I got to talk to Clive. I was hoping I’d get to talk to Clive, but thought it was too late. (Time zones.) So that was good. I’ll have to look at the time stamp later to find out when that actually happened.

I think I kept pretty good track of what day it was. Despite everything all kind of melding together. I can’t really tell now when one thing or another happened, but at the time that it happened I knew what day it was. I knew when it was Sunday. I couldn’t really remember everything that had gone on Saturday, but I knew that it was Sunday.

I also got to catch up on some of my YouTube watching. By this time it was Sunday and I could keep my eyes open with little to no effort. For some reason when I would watch videos by Lydia or Hank, they would freeze. This is especially odd because when I would watch other videos on the same channel (John’s videos or the other ladies of 7NAP) I didn’t have a problem. This would happen to me on my old internet connection as well. Which can only leave me with one conclusion. YouTube is trying to prevent me from enjoying the goodness contained in both Hank and Lydia videos. And granted, there is more goodness in those videos than it should probably be legal to allow, but John and the other 7NAP ladies have some pretty fantastic videos as well and I had no trouble viewing theirs. So Lydia (who I know will eventually read this), Hank (who I know will never read this), there’s a conspiracy. I don’t know how far the conspiracy goes. I don’t know if YT is preventing just me from enjoying your awesome, or if other people are suffering too, but I just thought I should let you know that it exists.

So now I’m still a bit fatigued and still coughing and still blowing my nose and still on a bunch of meds and cough drops, but at least I’m not still fatigued, coughing, blowing my nose, on a constant stream of meds and cough drops while trying to be at work. That would definitely suck WAY more!

While I could probably think of more things to ramble about, or more details I could add, I won’t. The medicine is making me drowsy. This sentenced is being typed with my eyes closed. I literally can’t be bothered to look at what I’m writing anymore.

Oh, and by the way, especially having taken so long to get around to blogging, I am absolutely horrified at the thought of BEDA. Which starts in 4 DAYS! wheeeee!

Daylight Savings Time

this year I figured there was no way I'd wake up late after daylight savings. my phone's clock changes automatically and I use my phone as an alarm clock, so I'm set.

wrong!

my mom was woken up by the phone, the bus driver calling after my brother, and she in turn woke me.

we could hear the alarm ever so faintly and I went into the living room to find it. it was nowhere and I couldn't heart it anymore. then I remembered that I had checked the battery level before I went to sleep (no battery power, no alarm), that it should be by my bed, and it therefore must have glitched.

it didn't.

I followed the faint sound of the still ringing alarm to the place where it was wrapped in my comforter.

it was literally right next to me!!!

I just... that was... that was just too ridiculous not to share, blog.

*sigh* *continues day*

writing

don't call it a comeback!

...or do. i don't care.

hey blog! long time no ramble!

i've been utterly busy with utterly dull things. hence why there haven't been too many updates. i'm working and knitting mostly. that's my life in a nutshell. occasionally i make an appearance on YT. that's it.

while i enjoy knitting, it isn't really something you write a blog about. ...unless you're really good at it and make a knitting a blog. in which case, that would be fine. and much more interesting than anything i would blather on about.

so now that i've avoided insulting any knitting bloggers who may have stumbled upon this blog...

lately i've been getting story ideas and trying my hand at writing. they're interesting ideas, however, as readers of this blog will surely agree, i'm a shit writer. so instead of the ideas being communicated with eloquence and style (and, ya know, an interesting manner), they're just written. most of the time when i read it back it just sounds clumsy and trite and awful.

but oh well. it's still fun to do. so i do it when i have the time. maybe, with the practice, i'll win NaNoWriMo this year.