Happy Birthday To Me

So, yesterday was my birthday. I'm 38 now. Funny how I don't feel any older. I just am. I've also begun lately to have these dreams again where I'm floating through people's houses I don't know. I know I'm not supposed to be there and the whole thing is exciting and terrible at the same time. I can remember having these same dreams as a child and wondered if I had slept-walked during the night and broken into other people's houses. Now, I think it's me taking a tour, so to speak, of the other parts of my personality (or personalities). When I was in therapy, all of my therapists discounted dreams as nothing more than the inane ramblings of the subconscious mind. I don't think so. I think some dreams can help you see into yourself and figure some things out. You just have to know which dreams to count as meaningful and which are not.

I've finally come out of my latest funk. The voices have calmed down quite a bit to where I can tell them to fuck off and they do. The biggest thing that helped me come out of it this time was that my best friend, Ashley, came over to help me clean my apartment. When I get really depressed, my apartment gets pretty bad. I don't wash the dishes, sweep, mop or anything. My apartment still isn't totally the way I want it, but at least the majority of it is clean and that makes me happy. I also got a Dyson Animal and Allergy vacuum for my birthday. That makes me happy too. Now, I can actually do something about all the cat hair that is all over my furniture and everything else in my apartment. I love my Dyson. It's heavy and hard to push and pull across the carpets I have, but it works like a dream. For me to be excited about anything regarding cleaning is a momentous occasion.

I've been turned on to a new kind of music that I love. It's called Fado. The only artists I've listened to so far are Mariza and Ana Moura. I'm totally in love with Fado. I'll be getting my hands on as much of it as possible.

It seems as though, for right now, fortune has chosen to smile on me. Although I don't yet have a job, I've been able to get new living room furniture thanks to my dad. My cats had ruined my other sofa due to their penchant for peeing on it. So, I couldn't sit on it and I wouldn't let anyone else sit on it. It was useless. I made the trip over to North Little Rock and found a store that had really nice furniture and a lot of it on sale. I got a mossy-green chaise lounge with a matching chair that you can put at the end of it or take off and move around; a neutral blue ottoman/coffee table and a blue/cream/tan/dark blue/white striped armless chair. I know it sounds like all that doesn't go together and that it would be atrocious to look at, but it's not. It looks great and I love it.

I'm also waiting, very impatiently, for an XBox 360 to arrive along with 3 or 4 games that I got for my birthday along with a little 13" Hello Kitty tv with dvd player. You could say that I pretty much got everything I wanted this birthday and more. It's hard not to sound materialistic here (I'm not really.). It's just that I've gone so long without having pretty things that don't smell like cat pee. I'm really excited to finally be able to sit in my living room and actually enjoy it.

Shite Shite And More Shite

I got this from Pippa. She's funny like that and I really needed to snort and cackle like the booger picking 5th grader I really am.


Shit Be Gone - The World's Coolest Toilet Paper
Shit Be Gone cleans up your unpleasantries like a champion among toilet paper. How funny would it be to have this sitting in your bathroom during a party, or when your Aunt Vivi stops by? Come on. This is awesome. This is pure fifth-grade-humor hilarity.

Shit Be Gone toilet paper is pillow soft and 100% recycled. Also, it's 2-ply, so it's tough enough to handle your messiest jobs without tearing or falling apart. This isn't a cheap gag toilet paper. This is the real thing. Actual quality. You could use this stuff every day.

Stock up on Shit Be Gone for your office supply cabinet! Watch your co-workers come rolling of of the bathroom, laughing so hard they can't even use it.

Here at Isdera Corp. we have Shit Be Gone in the executive bathrooms. Actually, this would be true if we had executive bathrooms, we just have two bathrooms. We have a ladies room and a filthy men's room. We use ShitBegone in both of them, although the men's room seems to use much more of it.

ShitBegone. Because it has to go somewhere.

500 2-ply sheets per roll.

This is real tp. You can order it here: ShitBeGone

This reminds me of a story I heard a few years ago (because everything reminds me of a story). A few years ago a product came out called WeedBeGone (betting that's where ShitBeGone got the idea). As it happened, around that time I was in a church service where the pastor was talking about the WeedBeGone product in his sermon. He was saying that if we only could look at the Devil the same way we do weeds then we could just tell him to "Be Gone!" in Jesus' name. A few weeks after that sermon, I was with my boyfriend at the time, Micheal, at a little get-together over at the house of a couple who were friends of his. They had a little boy who was around 4 years old. After dinner, the boy disappeared into the back yard and after he was gone awhile and everyone was looking for him, we heard from the back yard, "Fear Be Gone!" repeated over and over. We all went outside to see the 4-year-old standing right next to the fence of their neighbor's yard (who had a big dog that the boy was afraid of) pointing accusingly at their dog and yelling, "Fear Be Gone!" He said he learned it from listening to the pastor's sermon at church. I guess in the mind of a 4-year-old, the big dog next door is the Devil.

Wouldn't it just be really funny if someone took that principle to the bathroom? This is exactly what I thought of when I saw the ShitBeGone toilet paper. Having spent some time in the "name it claim it" churches, I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to banish their shit in Jesus' name. I just want to see it on You Tube.

Hello Kitty Loves Me

I've been in generally a good mood for the last week or so, except that sometimes I find myself losing my temper and wondering to myself when I became such a raging bitch. Everything irritates me lately and I seem to have no patience for anyone or anything. At the same time, though, when I'm quiet or trying to go to sleep (which is hard enough), I am overcome by negative emotions, negative self-talk, sadness, despair and a strong wish to die. It's almost like if I stop moving, my mind or my body, then that is just there waiting for me. I read on Beautiful Dreamer's Journal that she has this overwhelming wish to die sometimes too. She said that it is when she is grieving the loss of her original self before the abuse happened; before her original self died and the rest of her split into so many pieces like a shattered mirror. I never realized that a person could grieve for the loss of a part of themselves. I mean, it makes total sense now that I think about it. I'm surprised I never realized it before.

I think that when these feelings come on me suddenly that I'm grieving for the loss of my original little girl. I realize only now why I have so many little girl things; why when I go to a big store I find myself in the toy department wondering how I got there and why; why I buy little girl things and keep them all over my apartment. I still have all of my stuffed animals and dolls from when I was a little girl. I don't hide them. I keep them out in my room. They are part of what make my room a sanctuary from the rest of the world. I feel like when I'm there, I don't have to have my guard up. Now that I'm not living with Dad anymore, it's more like my whole apartment is my little girl sanctuary. It's not all that way, but parts of it are: like my Hello Kitty lunch box; oversized Hello Kitty pillow and my Hello Kitty area rug.

I remember being conflicted about wanting to be that little girl and at the same time wanting to be grown-up me. I wanted to reconcile them both. Now, I realize I don't have to reconcile them. I can be them both with no fear of repercussion. I have given myself permission to indulge my little girl; to give her the love and acceptance she never got but always craved; to treat her like the princess she always was and is.

It's a little freedom; a tiny insight, but it means a lot to me.

WTF?

I don't know what the hell is going on with my sidebar. I've been trying to fix it for a couple of hours and now I'm sick of looking at all the code. That's what I get for trying to put Adsense in a place where it's not so garish. I want to make some money off my blog (I'm even thinking about doing the PayPerPost thing again.),but I don't want my blog to look like one big commercial.

Tacky. To say the very least.

If anyone has any ideas about how I can get my sidebar back to where it's supposed to be I'd love to hear them.

Things I've done already:
1. Reduced the size of the picture on the left side.
2. Reduced the amount of padding for the main content so that it's moved farther over to the left to make up for the smaller picture.
3. Reduced the amount of padding for the header so that it is also moved farther over to the left.
4. Edited picture posts so that the pictures in them are smaller to avoid pushing the sidebar down.
5. Resized the width of the sidebar.

What have I not done that I need to do?

P.S. I didn't set my clock forward last night. I'm such a rebel. (yeah right)

Secret Sunday

I haven't done this in awhile, even though it's one of my faves.

Post Secret

It just so happens that I went out the other night with a friend of mine and asked her offhandedly,"Do you think I should wear my fake pony tail?" She looked at me quite seriously and said, "Yeah, I think it takes at least five years off of your face." I bought that pony tail, you know, just for kicks because I like to dress up sometimes. I like the way it makes me look. I also know that my friend didn't mean anything by saying what she did. She complimented me in a round-a-bout way. On the one hand, I appreciate that, but on the other hand...when I got home later that night and took the synthetic, straightned pony tail off I felt like I had just taken my beauty off. I felt like my hair, which is short and super super curly, was not beautiful and that I was not beautiful.

Every where I look all I see are women who have straight, shiny hair. Mine is curly, coarse and has a tendency to be dull looking because of it's coarseness. Even though I get a lot of compliments on it, I think privately that those women who say they want hair just like mine would never go for it because it would make them feel too different; too set apart from the rest of the herd. Sometimes, it's not bad to be a small part of a whole and I understand that dynamic. Other times, though, it's best just to be one's own self curly hair and all.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to spend hours working on my hair. She even gave herself blisters working the hair dryer to try to get my hair straight. For her efforts what she got was just a bunch of fairly straight, extremely coarse (more so because of the hair dryer), very unruly and very very big hair. All of my childhood pictures look like I'm wearing a grown-up wig. When I got to be in my twenties, I stopped trying to straighten my hair everyday simply because I just got tired of fighting with it. Still though, sometimes I wish I could be just like the majority of women with what one of my girlfriends calls "white girl Pantene hair". I guess it would be easier. I don't know. Maybe not.

My insecurities are screaming at me today. Can you tell?

...And I Wasn't Even High. I Swear.

I've spoken before about the fact that I have Celiac Disease and on top of that I'm allergice to wheat as well. So, wheat products are basically toxic for me. That said, I was looking around the house earlier for something sweet to eat. Y'know you all get those cravings. Don't deny it. You know who you are.

Standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and not really thinking anything, I spotted this bowl of ready make cheesecake filling I had bought the last time I went shopping. It's just the filling-no crust involved, which is perfect for me because I love cheesecake. (Yeah, I have the dairy thing to watch out for as well, but it's not nearly as severe as the wheat thing. I freakin' love dairy products. Well, except cow's milk. I've been drinking soy milk for so long now that I can't even stand the smell of it. It always smells sour to me no matter how fresh the bottle says it is.) I pulled the bowl out and thought to myself, "I'll just eat this right out of the bowl", but it turned out to be kind of bland. Y'know, cheesecake sans graham cracker crust just don't taste right. So I got to thinking what I had in my cabinets that I could add to it to make something creative, but still good.

First, I grabbed the bottle of strawberry preserves (I bought that squeeze bottle. You know, the one you have to sit upside down in the fridge. I also bought it because when it's nearly empty, it makes loud fart noises and my dad can't stand it. Just a little entertainment for me.) and I squeezed out some into the bowl a little at a time. Squeeze. Stir. Taste. Squeeze. Stir. Taste. Until finally, I got it the way I wanted it. I thought I was finished then, but it was still lacking something, so back I trotted to the kitchen with bowl of ready-made-cheesecake + strawberry preserves in hand. I stood in the middle of the kitchen (in the semi-dark) and just looked around. Aha! Rice Krispies. So I put some of those in with the cheesecake and strawberry preserves. Same method as before. Pour. Stir. Taste. Pour. Stir. Taste. Until it tasted right to me. In fact, I thought it was damn good if I do say so myself.

I then took it out on the back porch to test my experiment on Dad. I said, "Taste this and see if you like it." He looked at me in the dark, dubiously, and said, "What is it?" I said, "Strawberry Cheesecake Rice Krispie Treats." He still looked doubtful, but he took a small spoon of it and put it to his mouth like he was being forced to eat glass. Then, all of the sudden, he turned to me and said, like he was surprised-as-shit that I actually made something good, "I really like this!" Then silence for a couple of seconds while I turned to go back inside. Just as I was getting to the back door, I hear him say, "Are you going to eat all of that?"

What's amazing to me is that I made these things 16 years after I stopped smoking pot. I mean, let's truth-it-out here: strawberry cheesecake rice krispie treats are something that people make when they're so stoned that they could eat cardboard and like it. I know, I've been in that state before and the food that materialized I can't even talk about because it was so stomach-churning. But these are good! I'm actually thinking about taking some to my family Christmas thing. I may improve on the recipe, though. Like add some chocolate chips or maybe marshmallows. I'm going to have to experiment with it. Of course, you know, Dad will be my guinea pig.

It's at times like this when I think to myself, "Maybe there is a cook laying dormant underneath all my non-domesticity." Then, I come to my senses and realize that the only things I make well are desserts and that's only because I am ruled by my sweet tooth. Everything else I eat is pretty much canned, packaged and processed (except for the salad-I love salad).

I guess the no-wheat-gluten thing is forcing me to be creative with my food. That's a good thing since I've never really been that creative with food. For instance, I now eat PB&Js on corn tortillas. It may sound gross to you, but it's really good. I was telling Sally one day that they would probably be really good if I could find a way to fry them without all the stuff inside getting all melted. Too fatty, though, for regular eating. Like I said, my brain is a one-track-dessert-mind. Basically, corn tortillas have replaced my bread. Anything I used to use bread for...I now use that. Again, it does require some creativity on my part, but the longer I go without eating wheat products the better I feel and when I do give in and eat something, like brownies or whatever, and get to coughing with the asthma my allergy to wheat causes and then the body pains come. They radiate from my stomach area. Not fun. It's then that I realize how dumb what I just did was and it makes me more committed to living gluten-free.

Oy. Dios Mio!

I feel:: shaky; Like a dumbass I didn't take any of my meds today and only just realized it a few minutes ago.

My picture host server recently moved to another server "to better maintin customer quality" or something like that. So, I'm having to replace the header, footer and background images.

Bear with me while my blog looks a bit funky for a bit. It seems this week is not the week that the universe likes me. I guess we all have those weeks. Right?

Insanity shall once again commence as soon as I've had a serious talk with the HTMl/CSS Blogger Template. Oh yes, much finger pointing shall ensue.

EDIT: Ok. Fixed. Sort of. You can view it correctly now either in FF or IE with the sidebar showing where it's supposed to be (not underneath the post body like it was before in IE). I changed the "visited" links color and it's showing up in FF, but not in IE. Oh well, I guess that's a minor thing. I don't know why it's not showing up because I put in the correct HTML color code in the right place. It's mind-numbing, isn't it?

So, the momentary drama is over- talk amongst yourselves or to yourself, whichever you prefer.

Don't Mess With Me-I'm HTML/CSS. I Will Seriously Kick Your Ass.

I have gone and messed up my sidebar somehow, but I'm way, way too high on my meds to go about fixing it right now. Just FYI.

Besides I have to be up at 6am so I can go to Ther-a-pee.

~Note to self-Never try to look at long lines of code on Klonopin and Migraine meds. It makes the HTML/CSS all look smushed together like one big funky word.~

EDIT: I'm working on cleaning up my sidebar. We will now rejoin regular programming.

Everything Is Right With The World (For Now, Anyway)

I feel:: like I need more coffee

I got my computer back the day before yesterday. I've just been too tired to post about it. I feel like all I do now is study and it's only just past the 2nd week of school (told you I'd be bitching about it by the 2nd week).

So, anyway, here's what happened:
One day, I turned it one and the screen made this frying-bacon-scary sound and then it went completely black. So, I took it to The-You-Know-Who-Squad and they told me that the backlight had gone out and that it would have to be sent off for service. Not only that, but also the guy I was talking to told me that it would take 3 weeks for me to get it back. At that, I think I raised my eyebrows so high that they disappeared into my hairline, my voice got all high and squeaky and any attempt to be cool flew right out the doors of Best Buy. I opened my mouth and what came out sounded like a 5-year old being sent to bed early. I squeaked,"You're kidding me! 3 Weeks?! I need that computer for school!".Saying that I needed it for school was a handy excuse for me being so freaked out. At least I could justify it to myself. I don't know how convinced Mr. Computer guy was. (This particular situation reminds me, now that I think about it, about another time when I totally freaked out over getting a key made at Wal-Mart. They made the wrong key (it was for my apartment) and I had to take it back only to be told by Mr. I'm-much-too-stoned-to-give-a-shit that I definitely had not purchased that key at that store. The only major problem with that, other than the fact that I had the receipt in my hand, was that at that time I had just quit smoking and was at that moment as strung out from the lack of nicotine as a person can be. I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but according to my friend, Alisha, who was with me, I threatened the stoner guy behind the counter with some sort of bodily violence which included damage to his family jewels. The result: I got a key that was made right and immediately after that, I squealed tires off to the nearest gas station to buy a pack of Camel Wides.)

After my over-obvious incredulity, and the-not-so-sly looks at my cleavage by Mr. Computer Guy, he told me that he would get the work expedited (Just for me. Isn't that nice? Who says boobs don't come in handy? I just never thought they would be my allies in getting my computer fixed faster than it would have been. Those Mr. Computer-type-guys have never really given me a second look. Or maybe they're just more sneaky than Mr. Average Joe.) Anyway, when I got it back last night, it turns out, according to another guy on the You-Know-Who-Squad that the Inverter had to be completely replaced. Thank God for warranties.

Well, I'm back now. Everyone can breathe a collective sigh of relief. Me especially, since I felt like a part of my body had been sawed off when I had to leave my computer at the store to be sent off for service and then be without it for the subsequent 10 or so days. Yes, I'm a wussy. I can't live without my computer. So there.

Sans Computer and I Can't Function. What Does That Say About Me?

Just in case anyone was wondering why I haven't posted for awhile...
The backlight on my brand new laptop went out the day school started, which was last Monday. It's been in service since then. I'm supposed to get it back on the 9th of Sept. So, let's hope the Geek Squad told me the truth.

Thanks so much for all the kind comments from my previous post. I really do appreciate them so much. I'm not going to be blogging probably at all until I get my computer back. It's just such a pain in the ass to do it at school. *bitchbitchmoanmoan* I just want my laptop back. It's my baby.

My Inner (Or Not-So-Inner) Geek

I feel:: like I either need Starbucks or some ice cream. OO! Starbucks ice cream! I think I'm pre-menstrual, just fyi.

Ok. Y'all remember when I posted about getting a new computer? Well, right after that in a rush of emotion, I called my mom and asked her if she would like to have my old one. It's not really that "old". I bought it in 2001, but I guess as computer technology goes, it's ancient. At least that's what the "Geek Squad" guy intimated to me by his not-so-subtle wide-eyed ganders at my computer when I brought it in to have them look at it. You would have thought that I had just said, "Hey can you fix my Atari console?"

Anyway, I talked to my mom yesterday and she wanted to know if I wanted to come up and see her. Also, she wanted me to bring the computer. I know she's itching to get her hands on it. When I called her to ask her if she wanted it, she literally squealed with delight. My mom is disabled and lives on the money she gets from the government for her disability, which is, to say the very least, a pittance. She has a desktop computer, but I think she bought it in the early '90s. It's got a 20G hard drive. When I told her that no one even makes 20G hard drives anymore, she looked surprised. Well, she's got so much stuff on her hard drive that she can't even defrag it. It's only got like 1% free space left. She puts recipes on her computer. Lots and lots of recipes. That's what's taking up all the space. It's a wonder she can still get online (she has dial-up *cringe*). I don't know why she doesn't just print them out and put them in a notebook. Or transfer them to a floppy disk. (Yeah, that's right. I said "floppy disk".) Her computer has a cd-drive, but it doesn't have the capability for her to transfer stuff from her hard drive to a cd in the drive. But, she does have a floppy disk drive that she can do that with. I told you her computer was old.

Yesterday, I couldn't get on the internet because there were storms all over the place so my satellite crapped out as it usually does during bad weather. It's irritating, but I'm used to it. So, I decided to use the time to get my old computer ready for Mom to use. I started working on it at about 3pm. I stopped at about 10pm. I thought I was going to go to bed and I tried to, but it just wasn't in the cards for me last night. I tossed and turned, thought and re-thought about the computer and tried not to fall into a crying panic attack for a couple of hours.

I got up about 12am and got the computer out again and started working on it. I had a lot of stuff on there that was just unnessary and things that I knew my mom wouldn't want or need. So, I accidentally deleted this one program (I say "accidentally", but it wasn't an accident. I just didn't remember what that program was for until after I deleted it. It's kind of like locking your keys in your car and realizing you did it the second you shut the door.) The computer display went all weird after I did that. Everything got HUGE. I thought to myself, "Jesus, I'm not blind. What the hell?" So I fixed the screen resolution and then proceeded to move on to other programs to make sure that they were working only to find out that because I had deleted that one program, some of the other programs were now not working right. If I could've kicked myself in the ass I would have. So, I did a System Restore to earlier that same day-to 7pm. I thought to myself, "Surely I didn't delete that program before then." After waiting for what seemed an eternity,the computer rebooted and I checked the Add/Remove Programs section to see if the program I deleted was there. It was, sort of. Only half of it was there.

Fuck.

So, I did another System Restore to even earlier that day-5pm. Another eternity passed while I was growing ever more panicky and hugging one of my decorative, chenile, fringy pillows so tight that I was having trouble breathing. The computer finally rebooted again. I watched with super-impatience waiting for the task bar to load, because if the program had been restored it would show up there. It didn't. So, I checked again the Add/Remove Programs section only to see the same thing I saw before: only half of the program had been restored.

You know how sometimes during the middle of something, you suddenly have this idea pop into your head out of nowhere? As if the computer fairy had just implanted it into your head? That's what happened right then to me. I thought, "I'll just reconnect it to the internet and see if I can re-download the program." So, I disconnected my new computer from the satellite and reconnected the old one. Aha! There was the elusive program. It just popped up on the taskbar once I connected to the internet, but I got a pop-up on screen that said something like, "There was a problem with installation. Your new hardware might not work properly." I should never be the one to fix things because I'm the person who says things like,"Oh, these are just extra parts," then the whole bookcase or whatever comes crashing down. Predictably, I ignored that message thinking that I had met with success. I disconnected the old computer and reconnected the new one back to the satellite.

I moved back to seat myself Indian-style in my big-comfy-chair with my old computer sitting nicely in front of me on my footstool. I don't remember what happened after that. It's all kind of blurry. I think by this time it was probably about 3am or so and I noticed that if I stared at the computer screen long enough, it would morph into two computer screens. Never do LSD. It stays with you for years.

Anyway, I think I tried to remove some unnessary program I had found and the computer said that it needed to be restarted in order for the changes to be complete. So, ok, no big deal. Restart. Only when it did restart, only the little green light on the bottom came on. Nothing else happened. I thought, "Maybe it's assimilating information." So, I waited...and waited...and waited. I watched an entire movie (Dominion: A Prequel To The Exorcist-which, to my amazement was totally different than the other "prequel" to the Exorcist I had seen. I thought it was par for the course considering the night.) while I was waiting for something to come up on the screen.

After the movie was over, I moved to get out of my big-comfy-chair so I could go to the kitchen to get something to drink. In the process, I bumped into my footstool, which in turned jarred the computer sitting on it and it fell to the floor. Not a very hard fall-I have carpet and the footstool is only a couple of feet high, but a fall nonetheless. Freaking out, I pulled the computer from the floor and unplugged it from the wall. (That's another strange thing about that computer. Sometimes you have to start it with only the battery power, or it won't start at all when it's plugged in to a wall socket, but then sometimes it will.) I waited a few minutes, plugged it in again and started it. It started right up like nothing had ever happened,which led me to think, "Maybe I should have dropped it earlier."

By this time, it was about 5am, so I decided that I had done enough with the computer, plus about 2 hours earlier I had taken 2 Klonopin and 2 of Dad's Wondermous Headache Pills in the hopes that I would be able to fall asleep sometime this week. After taking care of the computer, I went to my room and literally fell into my bed. I didn't realize how tired and achey my body was. I still wasn't sleepy, though, so I thought I'd do what I normally do to go to sleep-watch a movie that I've watched 574827485974689254782 times. There are certain movies that within five minutes of my turning them on, I'm sleeping like the dead. Last night, I decided to watch 'Matrix: Reloaded'. Despite my best intentions, however, sleep eluded me. When I finally decided to turn the tv off was when the characters on the screen looked like one body with two heads. Like I said, never do LSD. You never know when the flashbacks will come. The last time I did Acid was when I was 17 or 18 (1987 or 1988). Really, it stays with you for YEARS.