1. The sun is shining, but I don't feel like going out for a walk.
2. Test results came back negative for low thyroid and low B-12, but I still feel crappy.
3. I bought all the ingredients for deluxe split-pea soup, but the stove is broke.

1. After knowing/experiencing a ridiculous slew of professionals, especially teachers, it's pretty clear who sucks at their job. Is it kinder to say something or suffer in silence? I could be merely jaded and judgmental, but sucking at your job is sucking at your job.

2. I have got to get my shit together. This week of actively destructive avoidance has got to end. And yet I am astounded how few faculties one needs to perform adequately. Tis shocking how little one needs to do to get by. You really have to be flailingly crippled to fuck up in many cases. This does bot bode well in any case but makes me question the validity of most of what I have to deal with and why.

3. Smiling easily and being chatty is doing me no favors. I keep forgetting some men think any sign of normal friendliness is a sexual invitation, and those that I might entertain as such do often don't presuppose this way.
Man, if I was plagued woth a high sex drive right now, I'd be getting into such trouble.

1. Had a good meeting with the chairman today, looks like my job move might FINALLY be happening. Who knows when, but even knowing that it is happening is encouraging.
2. There's a copy of "The Obamas" on hold for me at the library, and I'm picking it up tonight. I can't think of any kind of gossip I like better than presidential social gossip. Nope. Can't.
3. Was reminded today that Monday is a holiday. I knew in my mind we got MLK Day off, I had just forgotten that it was this Monday. YAY DAY OFF!

1. Had to pay $2500 for car repairs (new clutch, new battery, other big things, long overdue). Put it on my Amex card. This "debt" apparently lowered my credit score just enough so that my mortgage refinancing won't go through for the moment (they're redoing the paperwork, it may or may not happen; score is still damn high). A similar thing happened the last time I refinanced (not as big amounts, but still annoying). What are we supposed to do, just sit in our rooms and not eat or breathe while this process takes place?

2. Due to said debt, I'm now poorer and a lot crankier.

3. Really unhappy due to 1 and 2, whoever said money can't buy happiness is full of it. Am already working two jobs, and don't ever see the end of this necessity.

4. Hating all the askme-ers who ask questions about their own mental health/illness and then go on to say, "my spouse is very supportive, but..." I want to say shut the fuck up, you have a spouse.

4a. If I start getting too repetitive/whining too much on the subject of not having a boyfriend, I apologize. It's killing me, and I don't know what else to say these days.

I know, Melismata, I hate being by myself too, but damn, the offerings out there are not worth considering.

Yes, indeed, Senyar!!

Oh, another bitch of the day:

5. My friend just inherited $100,000. Over the years, she's always gotten help from her family to pay off little credit cards here and there. I've never had that option. I love her, but I'm very bitter today, as you can tell, about money.

1. Today, I overcame the beast that is the centerpiece of my overdue project at work. Hoping I can salvage my job after all (though still looking to remedy that commute).

2. I, too, have an appointment to have my thyroid checked out. Trying to find out why I never have any energy to do anything. My shrink thinks it might be hypothyroidism or anemia.

3. Ridiculously twitterpated right now (see my previous #4). What else is new? Well, gee whiz, I think it might just be reciprocated this time.

1. I requested quotes on Monday from 3 places about getting the maple tree in the backyard removed. All of them said I'd have them in 1-2 days. I've gotten one so far. Grrrr.

2. Double grrr that it'll likely cost more than I was hoping. But it is a big ass tree and I won't have to worry about it falling on the house or the cable/internet/power lines during the next hurricane.

3. I received my 3rd paycheck today by mail despite having filled out the damn direct deposit form before I started working. Which means I need to get my butt to the bank to deposit it tomorrow. Triple grrrr. We'll see what HR says when they call me back.

And a whine: I decided to get term life insurance (seeing as my mother has no retirement savings and if something happens to me, I'd like to limit the possibility of her being homeless in her 70s). They're sending a nurse to do the checkup/blood taking thing Monday morning which is pretty nice. But it means I have to fast! No food after 12 mid! And with my appt being at 9a, it'll be 10a or so to eat breakfast! *feels faint with hunger days in advance*

1. I have an infrared camera. . .purchased for work by someone else on speculation that it might be useful. Well, I found a use. I have mentioned my incontinent dog, and when we let her out at night it is difficult to know whether she as done her business out there or not. Well last night when she went out and came in, I fired up the infrared camera, scanned the dark back yard, and found a little hotspot, out in the shadows. I felt very smug about this. My wife is unimpressed. (I have also found a yellowjacket nest in an overgrown area, which is hard to do in the dark, or even light.)

2. On consecutive nights, folks here have appeared in my dreams. The first one, with gaspode and her offspring, I discussed. The second one, although no more than PG-rated, I will keep to myself. Still, though.

3. Got tickets for the Portland Cello Project, which will drop by my little burg next week!

danf, the Portland Cello Project's version of "Take 5" has been my phone ringtone ever since you uploaded it here. :)

I have THE FLU. That's all 3 right there.

1. I took a step toward a more 'normal' media lifestyle. Long story: moving out here I hated having AT&T as my phone company, so when Charter Cable first offered phone service, I jumped on it. But after the 'promotional period', my whole cable bill got ridiculous so I cut it down severely: TV: no HBO, and BBC America alone wasn't even worth paying for a $10 tier of channels), Internet: get my own combo modem/router so no extra $5 equipment charge, Phone: dropped, in favor of experiments in ultra-cheap VOIP Internet solutions... which turned out to be more problems than anything. Meanwhile, I got really tired of TV, even though I was occasionally getting paid to write about it; my old desktop had a TV card and I could use it as a DVR, but when it died, setting up the new desktop was another pain. So I had pretty much neglected the TV for months and was considering cutting the cord and using the cable company ONLY for Internet. But last week, they made a new offer to existing customers: Internet, Phone, TV with a DVR box, for $4 more than I'm paying now, guaranteed for 24 months. So, the Cable Guy is coming over tomorrow to hook me up with shiny new boxes!

2. BUT my apartment had still not recovered from the relocation of the two storage units last summer. Boxes of everything I couldn't put out on the porch, no organization, and everything needed cleaning. I had a new piece of furniture I wanted to move the TV too (better line of sight from the bed AND the desk. increasing the likelihood I'll actually watch TV), but I was worried the installer would crawl behind where the TV was and/or where it will be, and run off screaming and calling for a Toxic Waste Clean-Up. So I could've made the appointment for Wednesday morning, but I did Friday morning instead. And yesterday and today I... (I can't believe I did this) CLEANED ALL THE THINGS! Not a great job, not really everything, but nothing stray in the middle of the floor (still needs remedial carpet cleaning), nothing weird in plain sight (I may yet make a display of my oddball action figures), all boxes of Dead Dad's paperwork in the closet (where it will stop nagging at me for a while) and everything accessible that might need to be accessed.

3. I'm too pooped to think of a #3, and you should be exhausted from reading my #1 and #2.

1. Ran in the rain. It wasn't so bad.

2. Husband got in touch with an old friend we hadn't talked to in a couple of years. They have a kid the same age as ours. Turns out a couple of years ago his wife developed some full-on psychotic disorder, tried to hurt their kid, filed for divorce, started seeing things... all that sort of horror story. They'd been together since high school - around 20 years. Just awful.

3. I can't think of a 3.

1. Went back to coaching debate today, caught up with my favourite super-intelligent 16 year old. There's an infuriating private-public school divide exasperated by the private schools paid coaching and subsidized travel, which makes coaching public schools frustrating but rewarding.

2. The girl I'm trying to get over is someone with whom I have class every day and with whom I share a social circle. Gah.

3. I'm developing a love for formal logic (one of the aforementioned classes) despite the mostly awful lectures. Solving the things is so very satisfying.

1. I have to tell someone I think she's developing schizophrenia tomorrow. Not really looking forward to that whole conversation.

2. I am retaining water and my wedding and engagement rings are not really coming off my finger. Grrr.

3. We have houseguests coming this weekend and no matter how much I tell myself it'll be fine, I'm worried. They have an 18-month-old and our place is REALLY NOT CHILD-PROOFED and I don't want to spend the entire weekend yelling "NO!" and thinking anti-feminist thoughts about why the kid's mother is not restraining him.

Senyar, when they're proxied into your 'puter, isn't that 'Fine, I get to fuck off' time?
/bright side?

Re psoriasis, there are a buncha buncha causes. I did some time med assisting in a dermatology dept., and while it didn't teach me this recipe that helps my Mom's occasional pruritic, idiopathic urticaria (trans.: "itchy rashy stuff, we don't know why"), it gave me enough info on various causes to formulate it:

-1 part hydrocortizone cream
-1 part antihistamine cream
-1 part antibiotic anti-itch cream
(all are over-the-counter at the drug store [or "chemist" if you live elsewhere])
-Mix well, slather on (especially at night when it won't be interrupted by handwashing, etc.)
-Hopefully enjoy relief as well as softer skin.

Senyar, when they're proxied into your 'puter, isn't that 'Fine, I get to fuck off' time?

Ha, clearly someone without billable time requirements!

1. My parents came over to our place last night for the first time since I moved in with my boyfriend in August. Then the four of us went out to dinner. I am glad that my mom got to see where I live. She very likely won't be able to again - my boyfriend practically had to carry her up the front steps because she couldn't climb them. She also went from being able to talk a little bit two weeks ago to not being able to talk at all anymore. I just wish that I had introduced my boyfriend to my parents before her diagnosis, but how could I know? It's too bad that he'll never know my parents the way they were before, though.

2. I have had this dull pressure in my lower right abdomen on and off for weeks now. It weirds me out a little but I am resistant to going to the doctor about it. Google research turns up nothing except that maybe it's related to constipation and gas, so I'm going to go with that theory for now.

3. Getting too fat to fit in any of my pants. I need to get it together. Diet time.

1. My bitch of a day turned out to be today, when I got a phone call telling me my mother has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. She's 58. Because I deal with Bad Stuff by reading around, I know that they've caught it early and survival rates are good (though they haven't really established what stage the disease is at), but in general this has hit me quite hard. People in my family tend to die when they are well over 80.

The other stuff doesn't seem so important now, but

2. I'm sick

3. everything else is OK

:( That's really rough, alto and amro. Thinking of you both.

I'm so sorry, alto and amro.

Thanks for the info, Shane. I've tried steroid (hydrocortisone) for psoriasis before and, whilst it's cleared it up initially, it's then come back with a vengeance. I'm pretty convinced now that psoriasis is an auto-immune illness, and I know it's also closely linked to arthritis. I take cod liver oil and zinc, and one day hope there'll be a cure. I know in the States there are many treatments not available in the UK - such as Enbrel, which is only available here for people with psoriatic arthritis (like The Singing Detective had), but in the US it's widely used to treat psoriasis.

It always gets worse in the winter, and although sunbathing is supposed to help it, I'm so fair-skinned that I can't sunbathe, so I don't even have that relief available. I try not to let it affect my life, but at the moment I can't swim at the gym because it looks so unsightly. I might ask them if I can wear my shortie wet suit to swim.

Sorry alto and amro.
amro- I recently met my bf's grandmother who is no longer really of this world, and he felt similarly. He loves her so much and it is sad that I will never know the person he knew and that the person I met is someone else. But even though she's clearly changed, I could still see a lot of the fun spirit and habits that he had described to me from stories in the past. I hope your bf was able to see glimpses of the way your mother was before, too.

Senyar- tech support people can be so frustrating! I was trying to solve some problems on my computer yesterday and had 2 people in my office helping, and my coworker walked in and looked and said "wow your computer is so slow!" and I yelled at him because at that point, I was using the "good" substitute computer they'd given me in the meantime.

1. BF just left on a week-long writer's retreat with his friends. They always have a lot of fun and I'm jealous and I'm going to miss him.

2. I keep forgetting (like TPS) that it's a holiday coming up, and now I know why people at the office were so happy and surprised when I said that I was busy this week, but I'd have time to get to their crap on Monday. I should tell them that's not gonna happen.

3. It's so windy! Time for fondue and a bath. Once I clean my bathtub. And get the stepladder out to get the fondue pot down. And go buy cheese. Sigh.

Senyar, I've been meaning to comment: If you're worried about it being an autoimmune disorder, try kicking dairy for two or three weeks and see what happens. (And, no, you can't occasionally cheat with a little cheese: It's the most concentrated source of milk protein imaginable.) I can show you about 28 years of research* leading up to the conclusion that most autoimmune diseases are related to the body's reaction to milk protein. Type I diabetes, for example: There is a higher statistical correlation between occurrence of DM1 (IDDM) in children with the genetic propensity consuming large amounts of milk-based infant formula than there is between smoking and lung cancer, and another recent study of a group of children with DM1 found that they all had considerably higher than normal levels of the antibody specific to milk. The thinking is that milk protein is so similar to the proteins of the human body that the human body's antibodies vs. milk end up destroying the body's own tissue. At least one doctor (John McDougall) is successfully treating a number of autoimmune disorders, including varieties of lupus, with a dairy-free, plant-based diet.

*The China Study is a research study on the correlation between diet and disease, ongoing since 1983, led by Cornell University Professor Emeritus Dr. T. Colin Campbell in cooperation between Cornell, Oxford Univ. in England, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, funded in the U.S. by the American Cancer Society, the American Institute for Cancer Research, the NIH (U.S. Gov't National Institutes of Health) and the U.S. government in general, resulting in thousands of pages of research performed all over the world, the results of which have been published in the finest medical journals, with over 350 papers published by Dr. Campbell alone. Dr. Campbell and the China Study have been a lead story in USAToday, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications, have been on many TV programs such as the McNeill-Lehrer Report, and are currently featured in the recent film "Forks Over Knives". The New York Times has referred to the China Study as "the Grand Prix of epedemiology".

swellfoop, I'd love to see the oddball action figures...