Huzzah for job goodness!

1. My back has been very cranky today, probably due to shoveling my car out from under the feet of snow yesterday. I took a muscle relaxer when I was woken up by my boss calling me and then a Vicodin when I actually got up for the day. I was quite loopy, but not in pain!

2. I'd planned to take off work this Wednesday and Thursday weeks ago and now I feel like a jackass because another major storm is coming in and Hopkins has closed for tomorrow, which means I won't be in the office until next Sunday.

3. Since I've been granted all this awesome free out-of-work time, I really need to get busy on my school stuff and make sure that I get all on top of a bunch of papers and projects and readings and whatnot.

4. I really wish my profs for one of my classes would get back to me quickly about the budget question I have because it's kinda screwing up my paper to not have a definitive answer yet.

5. I should go down and shovel out my condenser, but it's dark out and I'm sure it's quite cold. I should also finish shoveling out in front of my car too but I'm tempted to say fuck it for that, since I won't be going out until Sunday.

6. I think I have enough food to not have to go to the store this week. (Yay for stockpiling.) I'll run out of fruit on Saturday, but I can go to the store on Sunday after work.

7. While I think I've talked to my neighbors more this weekend than I have since I've lived here, I am not going to run for the board again at the annual meeting. I don't enjoy it and it's more stress that I do not need in my life. (Plus, I've pretty much just been a sockpuppet for my father and that is sucky.)

8. I registered for my spring and summer classes today and I'm very excited for "Organization of Knowledge" and "Records Management".

9. I've almost completely got the arms figured out for the first choreography that I've learned. (The DVD with it didn't really go into much detail for arms so I've been playing with them on my own to make it personalized instead of just a copy of the DVD.)

10. I'm going to be very sad if this next storm cancels my dance class this week. I've got DVDs (and I should be working on my Drills DVD, considering that's one of my resolutions for the year) but my brain seems to want to keep Arabian Spices and the choreography from #9 on repeat.

11. I think I need to start writing 'DISTANCE' on a bunch of notecards and tape one to my phone because I am sucking at this whole 'start creating space between my parents and myself' thing as I slowly work to remove their teeth from my ass.

12. Counting my lucky motherfucking stars that I didn't do what my mother was nagging me to do, which was to weather the last storm at their house, where they proceeded to lose power and weren't able to get out until late this afternoon.

1. Tore out most of a deck in advance of getting a new sewer line starting tomorrow.

2. The City decided that our house and our neighbor needed to have front sewer connections because we are "landlocked" with other property in back and because we have Orangeburg lines, which are on the verge of failure, so they spent 25K extending the service and it's costing me 2K to connect which is a good deal in that we'll never have to worry about roots or easement or anything but it's a mess for another few days.

3. Oh SHIT! Earthquake west of Oaxaca. I hope people are alright. There are so many old buildings in Oaxaca that I love.

4. Slowly putting on some weight after the melanoma stress. . .need to jump on that stat.

5. Very moved by Miko's Change thread, and what people here have been through lately. My wishes and affection to you all.

Very moved by Miko's Change thread, and what people here have been through lately. My wishes and affection to you all.

Me too. I've been almost silent hereabouts lately, but I'm still around and reading, and I'm sending hugs and best thoughts to all of you right now.

6. Had a very vivid dream in which I was kissed by Sigourney Weaver. I was working some sort of awards show, in a technical capacity, and she was in a long red gown. Colin Meloy was greeting, with hugs and kisses, a (male) band leader who was working the show, and all of a sudden Sigourney was there in front of me and apparently in this particular dream universe she and I are friends so she kisses me but then she turns it into a full makeout. Her lips were very soft and the kisses deep and I have my mouth open but not daring to use my tongue but then here is HERS, in my mouth and then fuck fuck fuck I wake up.

1. This cold winter is really getting old. The early morning starts are getting to me.

2. I'm depressed about how much weight I've gained over the winter and I need to get it off but I'm impatient and want to wake up tomorrow 15lbs lighter. I need to put more activity in my life, I'm not getting enough exercise.

3. Does anybody know how unfit you can be to start the Couch to 5K programme? I think if I can get into a structured form of exercise, it'll do me good. I can run on the treadmill at the gym. I feel too blimpy to take any classes at the gym, and anyway, I could hide at the back of a class.

4. The new cat in our street really loves the sound of his own voice. He's put outside at night, and all the other cats in the area have their own cat flaps so in this cold weather, they're all at home in bed for most of the night and he's wandering round the gardens yelling "I'M BORED, I'M SOOO BORED" (in Catonese) at two-hourly intervals.

5. My crush on Bobby Flay continues unabated. Red-haired men often have great butts and he appears to be no exception to that rule.

6. For the first time in 18 months I am free of trainees. A new guy (whose photo on the intranet makes him look like a contender for Upper-Class Twit of the Year) is being mentored by a team-mate. The downside of this is that they've ramped up my caseload.

1. Looking at another day off from work. I just won't drive what's normally a 45 minute commute in bad weather. I can't afford to replace my car, not to mention myself!

2. Part of #1 is that no one is appreciated where I work anymore. I was just told by my store manager that he's "splitting me" between two departments, and putting me more in the customer line of sight because "you are so friendly with the customers". This is the same store manager that told me two months ago that I talk too much to the customers.

3. I am not happy about #2. I can be friendly, but I am really content in the department where I work; I know no one will be able to keep up the way I do; and I feel like I will be expected to run a department without getting manager pay. NOT HAPPY.

4. Really looking forward to this weekend..my mom will spend Saturday night with my boys, so BlueEyes and I can have a romantic weekend. Yay!

3. Does anybody know how unfit you can be to start the Couch to 5K programme?

The first run I did on Couch to 5K was pure torture; I was not at all cut out for running. It was all downhill after that, and by the end of the program, I could run! I think the key was keeping in mind a comment I saw on AskMetafilter that reminded me that I didn't need to run crazy fast to be "running".