Archive | September 2012

be happy

Sep27

Today was a really tough day, what felt like the 4th “Monday” in a row. It was the second day this week that an important piece of equipment has catastrophically failed, and unfortunately all the other people who needed my help didn’t need my help any less just because I was overextended.

My mind has raced all week, but today was particularly bad. I actually felt dizzy (or “woozy” if I use the correct term) and had pangs of intense pain in my head a few times. My eyes came out of focus. I was thinking straight, but too hard, too fast.

I was in a meeting with one of our professors and our web developer, trying to problem solve how to sync iWeb files between computers (this seems like it should be easy, but it was a bit tricky until I finally figured out a genius way to make it work when the web instructions didn’t pan out).

One hour and 47 minutes into our one hour meeting, the web developer left the office, satisfied that the interaction was complete. I stayed behind to have a proper conclusion to the conversation, because I quite like this professor and enjoy chit-chatting with her, and really needed to ramp down from that particularly taxing technical interaction.

I admitted to her how busy it’s been, how tough the week has been, how it’s just not slowing down for us. She admitted to me that she often feels this but then she remembers her father’s words to her that a dead man does not regret the time he didn’t spend working. She reminded me that our place of work would keep running without both of us, a perspective I occasionally need reminding of. She told me the most important thing in life is to be happy. We talked about how she makes herself happy, something I promised to keep to myself but it made me smile so much and wish I could do the same thing. She opened my eyes to the importance of taking care of myself, which I am very bad at doing.

I am so far into life and yet I still shove my work in front of everything else. It’s admirable on the outside, but the more I give, the more other people will take. I need to be the example of someone who says it’s time to stop for today rather than the person who goes 5 extra miles and dies of a stress-caused ailment.

It is time to be happy, Poppy.

fall

Sep26

I almost got through the night without a bad dream. Right before I woke up for the day I had an ambiguous dream where Dawg said “I have something to tell you” and I got scared that it was going to be a bad thing so I woke myself up.

I told him about this dream when he got home tonight and asked him if he had anything bad to tell me. He didn’t. I asked him if he had anything good to tell me. He reminded me about some good news.

I am left with the reminder that I am always waiting for the other shoe to fall.

I hate that.

catch

Sep25

Lately I’ve had a couple “this could actually be reality and you’re just the last to know” dreams. In the first dream I was screaming so loudly up in the air that I wondered if I was screaming in real life and woke up to check. Turns out I wasn’t, and Dawg was snoozing happily next to me. This morning’s dream was a follow-up to the first. In this dream I had a lot of “first person” sensation where I was confronting someone in my dream and even picked that person up, even dropped that person with the intent to harm, even yelled at that person to stay the fuck out of my life.

I really don’t want those dreams anymore. They are built on insecurity and fear. Even if they were true life, I don’t deserve to live it in my dreams as well as my reality.

So, tonight I stood up on the bed and shook my dreamcatcher. We each have one on our side of the bed, directly over where we sleep. It may be just a coincidence, or a ritual to me, but whenever I empty out the dreamcatcher my bad dreams tend to leave for a very long period of time.

Here’s to hoping those dreams are gone for the rest of my life.

This entry was posted on September 25, 2012, in Dreams.

possess me

Sep24

In November 2010 I went to the NYC Chocolate Show with Bellaventa. While there we tasted a dessert wine called Essensia by Quady Winery. We then had the brilliant idea that we wanted to purchase bottles of Essensia so we obtained a printout of the local places that sell the wine and then proceeded to spend the next couple hours combing Manhattan for this wine.

We found it.

And then we said goodbye to each other and went home, because looking for that wine was kind of exhausting.

Do you know that it is almost October 2012, and I don’t know what made me do this, but tonight I opened that bottle of Essensia. But… I didn’t drink it. I just transferred it to another bottle of wine with a screw top and then rinsed the Essensia bottle and put it in the recycling.

I wonder why, after almost two years, I decided to open it but not drink it.

I wonder if I will ever drink it.

I would put money on myself that I’ll dump it out instead of drinking it, but, really, who’s going to bet against me?

guarantee

Sep23

Have you ever told someone a piece of information or news and hoped they would pass it along to their family, friends, or significant other? I know I have in the past, and I would always get mad at *that* person for not sharing the information how I wanted them to.

And then I decided that I didn’t like it when people did that to me, so why should I do that to other people or work myself up every time I hope someone does this for me but doesn’t.

If you want a guarantee that someone knows something you want them to know, best idea is to tell them yourself.

I bet this lesson is just a part of life.

I didn’t get to go to Mad Dog & Beans yet

Sep20

My former co-worker is in nursing school and is already freaking out about her workload this semester so she asked to bail on our plans for tonight. That worked out perfectly, since my job decided to take a technology dump all over my head. We will have another day together where I will shower her with positive words and buy her yummy Mexican food and pitcher(s) of whatever she wants to drink.

Another day.

This entry was posted on September 20, 2012, in General.

perfect

Sep18

My MS SQL Server Administration class got cancelled yesterday. Today I scrambled to find some alternatives. Looks like we’ll wait to see if the session is offered for October or November, but if not I’ll take a class that costs 2.5 times more than the one that my world class university offers. I would tell my university how much they’re undervaluing the content of this course, but I think I’ll wait until after I take it. Original perfect would have been this class, new perfect is now having Wednesday evenings off (we moved our corps night from Wednesday to Friday).

I was supposed to go see my work friend’s kittens on Thursday but she has to work an event so I am instead going out with my former work friend (as in, former job, not former friend) who was laid off from that same place I was and could use a commiseration meal so we are going to Mad Dog & Beans. I can’t wait! I wanted to go there with Ren once but we went to a place his wife ended up hating instead. Oops. I am excited to try Mad Dog & Beans because it’s Mexican food and they have pitchers of alcohol to get my friend drunk so she forgets how shitty our former employer really is sometimes. (They didn’t give her a farewell.) Original perfect was having kittens crawl all over me, new perfect is treating my friend to a great dinner and great drinks then having kittens crawl all over me next week. :)

Maybe you noticed my blog went missing, maybe you didn’t. For some reason, after this many years of paying the same hosting company for my domain, I considered the charges suspicious and contested them. If you don’t pay for your domain you don’t get to keep it. So, it went byeeeee for a little bit. Now that it’s back I realize that I did miss it and am happy it’s here again. Original perfect was shaping up to be moving back to Blogspot, new perfect is staying right here.

stuff and things

Sep16

Ever since we came back from our Star Wars Celebration vacation we have been in high gear at our respective jobs and at the ambulance corps. On Thursday I actually came home at a reasonable hour (Dawg did not have the same luxury) and I hung out with the kitties. Ripley acted like she had forgotten who I am. Not in that smug way cats act, but in that “I honestly have no idea who you are and I’m scared about that” way.

I’ve tried to spend a bunch more time with the kitties this weekend, but I was out Friday night, all Saturday, and then Sunday afternoon into the evening.

What did I do?

Interviews at the ambulance corps on Friday (I’m membership chair now, if I didn’t mention), helped Dawg set up for his driver training class at the corps Saturday then we had dinner and went to the movies, then Sunday we went big item shopping at a warehouse store called BJ’s and then had Sunday dinner at Mama Dawg’s. I was so exhausted from lack of enough sleep lately that I fell asleep before *and* after dinner.

I need another vacation. Thankfully things are coming up that will provide me with that, including an EMS conference, a wedding, and a quick visit from my BFF. :) ))))))

I’m starting an MS SQL Server Administration class this week. Looking forward to it, even though it’s for work. I love learning new things. Wish me luck? I doubt I need it for the actual content, but perhaps to stay awake in the class since it’s 6:30pm to 10:00pm one night a week, after a workday.

Also, for fun, I’ll show you the coolest car tchotchke I’ve ever seen:

It’s a Michael Myers mask/head!

And, for randomness, a map of Manhattan neighborhoods I borrowed from NYC Tourist:

And one more random thing that is awesomer than awesome:

Dawg is a Machead now! (He has a MacBook Air, too!)

green

Sep15

We spent the day at the ambulance corps where our colors are green and white. At around 6pm we went to CPK for dinner and I got the chicken tequila fettuccine with spinach pasta, so also green, then to kill some extra time before Resident Evil: Retribution we went to buy a new toilet seat to replace the blue one we’ve had since we moved in (we chose green). After the movie we came home and I put my ice pack in a pillow case that is covered in flowers, surrounded by their green stems, and now Ripley is resting her head on it.

Green is my favorite color, so I’m happy it’s making such a presence today.