I knew he wasn't to be trusted, even in the Dreamscape!

Rita-n-lime pickle spread sounds like the best thing ever right now

553. Today's breakfast consists of: two fried eggs, boiled red lentils and chock full o' nuts coffee. which is kind of freakish, i know. but it hasn't killed me yet.

-14. These out-of-order numbers kind of make me wish I were good at math. Like, a natural mathlete, able to grok the invisible connections among numbers.

91. The weather is beautiful. The sun is shining but it's not so disgustingly hot as it was yesterday.

%. Overslept, or at least that's what I told my boss this morning. My therapist thinks I'm self-sabotaging my job again; I'm inclined to think he's correct. Starting to think of therapy as being like a jail sentence. When do I get out?

}: The first commission check I feel I squarely earned will go towards the cost of an air conditioner because this heat-related insomnia is not fun. Cannot believe they're $300+ for one that will cool down a 200-some square foot studio apartment.

42. Is it vacation time yet?

87. I have been sick for the last two and a half days with what I believe was food poisoning (stupid oysters), but I'm worried that when I go back to my various workplaces today everyone is going to avoid me because they'll think I had the dreaded swine flu.

3. I had a really unsettling dream about my brother last night and I really wish he'd call me back and tell me he's ok.

91. The cat is still having an allergic reaction to something and I wish we could figure out what it is before she licks all her skin off. The latest theory is that she's allergic to the flea medication we used to get rid of the fleas, to which she is also allergic. Sigh.

589 Itchy from beating through thickets of poison oak* for 4 hours yesterday
590 Collared my first mountain lion yesterday! (150 lb male).
591 currently caffeinating and trying to get my brain kick started.

This despite the fact that I am immune to poison oak

I am not caffeinated enough to think randomly

TrishaLynn, a 6000 btu window AC unit should cost less than $150. And you don't need any more than that - a 6000 btu unit cooled my 450 square foot studio just fine. You may be able to find a used one cheaper on craigslist.

3. Super stressed, and shouldn't be on the internet.

2. Super tired, even though I got a ton of sleep last night.

1. Need to bill another ten hours today, somehow.

446. The alarm woke me up this morning in the middle of a dream where I was arguing with one of my old college tutors (whose [real] name is Mrs Whipman) about degree classifications. We were in a mall.

½. I'm working from home today and Friday, and this weekend is a holiday. No office until Tuesday. Woo!

1,000,000. I must resist any temptation to hole up for five days and not go out or talk to anybody. I go a little nuts when I do this, but I get paralysed by ennui and lethargy.

No 1. The pills rattle in the bottle/
and
No 2. they make such a happy sound, that
when
No. 3. happens, you may not even experience the vague underwater sensation that is the side effect of the sudden panda influx brought about by the air conditioner that my college tutor said could handle the math and is that the someone outside can't move because I took the pills which are

No. 1000! Yes 1000! which pills are left, dig under the lid dig under the lid more pills take them all am I at work? the itch the itch! my poison oak is talking to me about being nuts lost so much sleep but just woke up is it Tuesday am I at work? The Dreamscape Apocalypse - I cannot trust myself or it.

Thehelicoptersarecomingthehelicoptersarecomingmust not leavethehouse the cats smell like garbanzo they're here now the helicopters have landed

I figure I'm losing 60-90 minutes of sleep every night due to Overactive Feline Syndrome.

YES! What is up with this?? We started sleeping with our windows open on Friday night, and I haven't gotten a solid night's sleep since. Bob (who weighs 16 pounds) gallops around the house from window to window, jumps on and off the bed, and yowls as though we're surrounded by coyotes and only he can protect the fort. It's making me crazy. (And tired.)

My updates:

72. An unexpected Friday-morning deadline has suddenly reared its head, which is a little stressful, but not too bad. I got this.

Radium. I found an RSS reader that makes me suddenly understand why people like RSS. I feel all geeky (in a good way).

Iceland. Got EXTREMELY good news regarding my mom's huge medical bill yesterday, when the hospital called and said she doesn't have to pay 95% of it. In fact, it's paid off, don't pay anymore. There was much rejoicing.

uno: AC on the fritz. no rescue until tomorrow AM. plus side: windows open, birds chirpy, cats happy, & dogs lethargic. can't complain about working at home barefoot in tshirt & shorts.
dos: as moonbird so aptly put it on twitter the other day, I slept like a fish in a vacuum tube last night. (restlessly, if at all, due to uno.)
tres: worked like mad yesterday to gather content for new website. launches this weekend. I'm nervous.

uno: Am rewriting a manual for work. Discovered that in the previous version, in a diagram of a printout, there is the word "bonehead", which is what the software engineers temporarily renamed one of the servers. No one has noticed this until now, so I guess it wasn't a big deal.

due: Work has now blocked all blogspot.com domains, as well as Metafilter, Craigslist (but not eBay?) and Flickr. I fear that Metachat could be next.

tre: I didn't get much out of Catcher in the Rye. A story of one guy slowly losing it. Like several of my school classmates, and a few family members. I prefer to read books to escape, or be uplifted, not to be reminded of depressing realities.

12. I am loving the food I've been making. Tonight is linguine with pesto. And salad. I love my salad dressing so much. I may have to buy more lettuce! (I've been a life-long salad hater.) I'm disappointed that my cauliflower recipe didn't turn out well. (I've never made cauliflower before, but I think mine had gone off.) Also, I think I killed that pan while I was making it. I feel better but I'm not sure if that's a result of being off my sleeping pills for the longest stretch in a while, finally being out of the hellhole, actually eating real-person food instead of microwavable dinners and Lunchables, or the fact that I've been trying to eat fruits and/or veggies with every meal.

31. The COA board meeting last night was quite disappointing and distressing. Out of about 30 people, 5 showed up. We didn't have enough for a quorum, so nothing got done. Well, except me being appointed to the BoD. Along with one other person. Which makes a grand total of 3 out of 5 spots on the board being filled. As I'm typing this, the management company has been sending me all the back historical information that I'll need. This place is a fucking mess. In two years, they've been through 2 management companies and 3 different managers. WTH?

84. Work has been quite slow for the past few days. I know that this means that I should be taking the time to get into the nuts and macros of my database that I hope to launch before I go on vacation (so the boys can try to learn it without me there) but I really don't feel like doing anything other than look at grocery store circulars (see also: #12). It's a good thing my boss is pretty hands-off otherwise I'm sure I'd be in trouble. Not like it matters since we got news months ago that all raises (even COLA, goddamnit) are suspended for the next year. Fanfuckingtastic.

1million: I still haven't heard from UMD either (calling those fuckers on Friday) which is making me quite anxious because I'd like to know if I have a future, kthxbai.

3. I had a mefite in my dream too!

2. I dreamed that I went to cortex's house and saw that he loved golf and had a garage full of clubs and golf accessories.

1. Also in my dream cortex drove a nice new Mercedes sedan and kept it in his garage on one of those fancy hydraulic lifts (like this) so his wife could park her Prius underneath.

Dream cortex is such a yuppie.

43. I am now REALLY FUCKING FRUSTRATED because I got my recovering-from-being-sick ass out of bed and into the shower and over to work in order to meet with my supervisor, but she never showed up because she got an email from the secretary saying that I was canceling all my appointments "today," but she didn't notice that the message was sent yesterday, and nothing on the message said "Tuesday." So it's one of those "Not really any one person's fault" situations, but I REALLY needed to talk with her today because I'm freaking out about a client. Grr.

1. Saw the road show of Spamalot last night. . loved it. . .John O'Hurley (J. Peterman on Seinfeld) in the starring role. Really really top class production, and a LOT of stuff coming in and out of the stage all the time.

1. Work is kicking my butt. . .I have been coordinating around a spray operation for gypsy moths in a part of town, and some parents are freaking out so I decided on some simple things some schools can do (like shutting down the ventilation during, even though I only have schools CLOSE to the spray area, not IN). So now the Dept of Ag and the County Health Dept are pissed at me because those measures are lending credence to unreasonable fears. . .can't win.

IIVXL. Resurrected my old Dell laptop and convinced work to put updated software on it so I can use it as a work field machine. I am quite happy about that.

35. I started a new blog! Maybe I'll link to it later when it is better.

14. I took the day off yesterday and went to a bunch of tribeca film fest movies which were really good. There was an Armenian comedy called Masquerade which I liked a lot.

49. I brought in cake to work today and everyone was happy. Then I made one of my editors do a bunch of annoying styling work so she was less happy.

i had a mechazen in my dream too i wish my
skin wasn't so sensitive it's annoying
but
there is real suffer
ing in the word and
I did a thing in a program just now called "Allign By Master Object" and I
think that is a very cool phrase

I wish

Oh, that was going to be it, but on Preview, metachat left justifies I had spacing instead of 6, 97, 82, Miranda.

Why so linear, dude?

0. My therapist doesn't understand me.

−2,147,483,648: In a user interface class at work all week, it's a nice change from my normal tasks but not really relevant to them.

NaN: Had a really wonderful job interview on Monday for a job that I really, really want. It was a six hour interview but it flew by like I was just hanging out with friends BSing about software. Now I'm waiting for an offer/rejection.

0xDEADBEEF: I've lost 14 pounds in the last two months by running for an hour four or five times a week! 41 more pounds to go!

3.14159 I spent 4 hours with the spawn today at the science museum here in town. There must have been 400 kids. Younger Boy was required to wear his red daycare shirt. Older Boy was required to keep his green visor on. I required them to both be in overalls, which turned out to be quite handy a number of times.

I'm still exhausted after a nap.

ras New job in September was going to be lonely but a friend who already works there is probably staying on another year! Yay.

dwa Going to a panel discussion tomorrow in which I will be the "experienced" teacher. Weird at my age to be "experienced" at anything.

trzy FINALLY picking up my Polish textbook tomorrow. Yes.

17: enjoying snooker on TV. "World" Championship in which 7 of the 8 players in the quarter-finals were British :)

39: wondering on a floundering, fundamental level what to do with my life. These moments often coincide with the arrival of my college newsletter which makes me feel like a bumbling underachiever :(

67: further worries about mr alto's continuing employment.

enO: Very bad week so far; bad oncologist appointment; friend's mom's wake; lost an elderly former coworker in a fire.

owT: Saw a flock of turkeys on my way to work. Two regular wild turkeys, two white turkeys.

eerhT: I am enjoying the weather in my screen house. Mmmm, evening breezes. Actually, it's getting a bit chilly!

1. Office manager had to bring her hyperactive kindergartener to work this afternoon. Oy.
1/2. If I never see another corsage order it will be too soon.
1/4. My kitchen reeks of bad broccoli and I need to get off my butt and find the source. ugh.

5. Today I volunteered, then went to lunch with my husband. After lunch we went to Walmart and bought a new garden hose and some other necessities. Then we rode the bikes to pick up the kids from school and went to piano lessons and practiced fielding and batting at the park.

23. I ate too much today. After a reasonable breakfast and lunch I ate a "Take 5" candy bar and a medium sized bag of salt and vinegar chips. Then I ate a big plate of spaghetti. Rattling off what I ate and why I feel guilty is boring, I know. I don't feel as guilty as I usually would in the past, so I'm making progress, and feel pretty good about that.

43. I have been spending a lot of time outdoors. I have been reaping all of the benefits: A slight tan. I've lost ten pounds. I'm really hungry at meal times. I'm dead tired at the end of the day. I feel good mentally and physically.

P.S. Tonight I'm letting my kids stay up a half hour later than usual. Are The Simpsons over? I need to hit the hay. (Yes, I allow my impressionable children watch The Simpsons. Don't do what I do.)

P.S.S. Apologies for always talking about my kids.

666. CitiFinancial, holder of a $15,000 note that was once upon a time "secured" by the "collateral" known as my grandparents' crappy stereo, insisted that I pay them $200 for a one-month deferment, then I promptly received a default notice that the entire amount is due in 10 days or they sue (and they will attach the house, haha like there's equity). We'll just have to get my mom and dad into bankruptcy ASAP, I guess.

77 Sunset Strip. Dad still thinks he can manage his own money, and was pulling shit with the banks again this week. My Mom and I are going to Social Security tomorrow to start the process of having his checks deposited in an account we control. We'd have gone sooner, but we were trying to avoid a potential $10,000+ legal bill for a contested guardianship.

411. Got my Dad a new cell phone from Kajeet, which will let us look up where he is online using GPS. Shh. Don't tell him.

52. Secured funding for 2009-2010 school year. Working on 2008-2009 still.

31. Trying to get my mom to visit. I worry my grandmother doesn't have a lot of time left and I don't want my mom regreting not seeing her.

23. My little sister just turned 27 and my roommate will be 30 this weekend. Don't these people know every time they age so do I!?

168. I need a book light.

37264276534. Don't know when the cosmetic work in the elevators will be finished. Don't want to go back until it is. Can't get AC checked ditto.

457307485.Don't want what I've been observing, want what my gut remembers.

34895789537. I think chupahija is trying to set up that I'm a bad relative for refusing to be at the ash scattering. I respected my great-aunt (and was present for her memorial). I neither loved nor respected my grandmother.

89r798w4r. I've had plantar fascitis for over a month.

54889375. Had good conversation with cute guy at bookstore, but I think I'm too old for him...and gut says friend would be best.