Internet, I feel sick! All day today I felt off. It's either a bad case of heartburn or the cold/flu. And now that my head is foggy, I think I might place my money on the flu end.
I made ribs last night with a creole rub, and felt the effects immediately. I didn't think it was going to be an issue because I've been seasoning my creations towards the spicier side lately. The "heartburn" is so horrible it made me light headed today. Or maybe that's the flu? I drank water. I took tylenol. I drank Dr. Pepper. Sarah gave me some tums.
Then I felt better. But at 5 p.m. it was back. My god. I feel like if I would throw up (or burp) it would be better. And, HATE throwing up, so I guess I'm going to suffer or drink more soda (but what waste of Pespi Twist and I refuse to do it!).
I made an Asian Chicken Noodle soup, with chicken, noodles (you don't say?), garlic, ginger, veggies, peppers and lime juice/zest. Ginger is supposed to help with heartburn and that with the other ingredients, maybe it'll kick the cold/flu out??
Either that or it'll make it worse. I'm totally screwed.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Just don't let go or you may drown
William's chapter of That Dark and Winding Road. Click here to read again how we first met him.
There was nothing remarkable about the day. No emotional highs or lows. Just a day, like nearly every other day of the year.
William came home from work, threw his keys, his coat bag and empty dishes from lunch on the kitchen table. Half the contents of his bag clattered to the floor. Any other day William might have left them there until the next time he sat at the table. This time he bent over to pick them up and *BANG* his head connected with the table top.
He bit his tongue, and the taste of blood trickled into his mouth. William shut his eyes and watched the gold and blue lights dance. "Shit," he thought. William stood, to blinding pain in his head. "Gotta love those instant headaches," he muttered.
He figured nothing helps skull searing pain but hot water, so William turned on the shower and let the room fill with steam. He stepped in and let the water run down his back. William could never feel how tense his muscles were until the hot water began to sooth the ache.
Leaning one arm against the wall his head fell nearly to his chest. Then the tears came. He only cried in the shower. The running water mixed with his tears and ran down his cheeks. Here the red flush of his cheeks could be from the water or out pour of emotion, but no one was there to know. The spraying water and noise of the fans even masked the occasional audible sob.
His knees buckled under him and William found himslef on the floor of the shower. Still crying. He laughed between his tears, marveling at the utterly unmanly situation he put himself in. If the world could see him now.
Not that the world ever saw him anyway. Just a few days ago he went to the party. Filled with people he wanted to be. He tried the art of positive thinking, to picture what he wanted.
He had a fantastic life in his head. But his personality always wrecked it from coming through to others though. And there's a fine line between positive mental pictures and delusions. He didn't need to add crazy to his loser label.
That label was slapped across his chest like a name tag at the party. Hello, My Name is William, the Loser, blaring like a siren he knew everyone could hear.
Of course, most of them put up a polite front, not openly mocking him to his face. A small blessing, he supposed. But he could see the pity in their eyes. It made his neck burn with embarassment.
He tried his best to live up to the persona in his head at the party. He put on that mask--tried to smile and make small talk. God how he hated the fucking small talk. He yearned for a conversation. Something that wasn't that nauseating exchange of pleasantries.
But when you say, "I've had a really shitty day, the weather is horrible and I could give two fucks about the state of politics in Uganda as reported by the New York Times." If you say that, along with LOSER, they smack the WEIRDO tag on your back. Right next to socially inept.
He snickered at that sorry sight in his head. The ladies to his right looked at him and moved a little further away. His shoulders sunk. Exactly. He pushed his way towards the bathroom to splash water on his face and regain some composure. Or at least have a moment of peace.
Except that the door to the hallway was blocked by Matt and a gaggle of his adoring followers. He tried not to listen as Matt recounted a hilarous story about his exciting job and how colly he leads his life. Instead, William watched. The way Matt used his hands to emphasize the highlights of his story. So crisp, each beat dead on, the perfect punctuation to each point.
Then Matt pointed, at William? The group laughed. William turned away and placed his hands on a table below an ornate mirror. Trying not to hyperventalate, he focused on breathing deeply. He looked up with no acknowledgement of his own reflection, and surveyed the room. From this position he let his heavy mask slip.
The pain pooled around his mouth, pursing his lips. Defeat shown in his eyes, but William refused to face it, to actually acknowledge it there. Instead, he continued to look past himself, observing others without being a part of the group.
That sense of isolation jolted him back to the present, sitting in his shower. He turned off the water, then leaned back to pull himself up to stand, and his hand grazed his razor. With pain, fear and humiliation crushing William, he wrapped his fingers around it.
He brought it to his wrist, tracing a line down his arm. He leaned forward and looked at the faint red scratch. More pressure ...
There was nothing remarkable about the day. No emotional highs or lows. Just a day, like nearly every other day of the year.
William came home from work, threw his keys, his coat bag and empty dishes from lunch on the kitchen table. Half the contents of his bag clattered to the floor. Any other day William might have left them there until the next time he sat at the table. This time he bent over to pick them up and *BANG* his head connected with the table top.
He bit his tongue, and the taste of blood trickled into his mouth. William shut his eyes and watched the gold and blue lights dance. "Shit," he thought. William stood, to blinding pain in his head. "Gotta love those instant headaches," he muttered.
He figured nothing helps skull searing pain but hot water, so William turned on the shower and let the room fill with steam. He stepped in and let the water run down his back. William could never feel how tense his muscles were until the hot water began to sooth the ache.
Leaning one arm against the wall his head fell nearly to his chest. Then the tears came. He only cried in the shower. The running water mixed with his tears and ran down his cheeks. Here the red flush of his cheeks could be from the water or out pour of emotion, but no one was there to know. The spraying water and noise of the fans even masked the occasional audible sob.
His knees buckled under him and William found himslef on the floor of the shower. Still crying. He laughed between his tears, marveling at the utterly unmanly situation he put himself in. If the world could see him now.
Not that the world ever saw him anyway. Just a few days ago he went to the party. Filled with people he wanted to be. He tried the art of positive thinking, to picture what he wanted.
He had a fantastic life in his head. But his personality always wrecked it from coming through to others though. And there's a fine line between positive mental pictures and delusions. He didn't need to add crazy to his loser label.
That label was slapped across his chest like a name tag at the party. Hello, My Name is William, the Loser, blaring like a siren he knew everyone could hear.
Of course, most of them put up a polite front, not openly mocking him to his face. A small blessing, he supposed. But he could see the pity in their eyes. It made his neck burn with embarassment.
He tried his best to live up to the persona in his head at the party. He put on that mask--tried to smile and make small talk. God how he hated the fucking small talk. He yearned for a conversation. Something that wasn't that nauseating exchange of pleasantries.
But when you say, "I've had a really shitty day, the weather is horrible and I could give two fucks about the state of politics in Uganda as reported by the New York Times." If you say that, along with LOSER, they smack the WEIRDO tag on your back. Right next to socially inept.
He snickered at that sorry sight in his head. The ladies to his right looked at him and moved a little further away. His shoulders sunk. Exactly. He pushed his way towards the bathroom to splash water on his face and regain some composure. Or at least have a moment of peace.
Except that the door to the hallway was blocked by Matt and a gaggle of his adoring followers. He tried not to listen as Matt recounted a hilarous story about his exciting job and how colly he leads his life. Instead, William watched. The way Matt used his hands to emphasize the highlights of his story. So crisp, each beat dead on, the perfect punctuation to each point.
Then Matt pointed, at William? The group laughed. William turned away and placed his hands on a table below an ornate mirror. Trying not to hyperventalate, he focused on breathing deeply. He looked up with no acknowledgement of his own reflection, and surveyed the room. From this position he let his heavy mask slip.
The pain pooled around his mouth, pursing his lips. Defeat shown in his eyes, but William refused to face it, to actually acknowledge it there. Instead, he continued to look past himself, observing others without being a part of the group.
That sense of isolation jolted him back to the present, sitting in his shower. He turned off the water, then leaned back to pull himself up to stand, and his hand grazed his razor. With pain, fear and humiliation crushing William, he wrapped his fingers around it.
He brought it to his wrist, tracing a line down his arm. He leaned forward and looked at the faint red scratch. More pressure ...
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday morning musings
As I was getting ready for bed last night I mentally mapped out what I wanted to accomplish today. I realized as I was snuggling in, that my Sunday (and most of my Sundays) start about the same. Wake up. Read until the Sunday Morning Show comes on. Get up, make coffee and breakfast. Watch Sunday Morning Show. Adventure. Read dooce and other blogs. Write in my own.
I've been holding this tradition for at least four years, without a single thought. I love my Sundays.
Today, as I was partaking in my normal habit, my Internet connection went funny. I was receiving "server errors" and "page cannot load" messages. I checked my connection and it was amazingly slow 1.0 Mbps, where I normally have 11. No amount of refresh could make it pop back to normal, so I removed my wireless card.
When I put it back in it was blinking. Typically it blinks back and forth between the two lights as it's registering and achieving the hallowed connection. After connection is achieved Status stays on and Activity flickers. This was just a steady on-off. I double clicked on the icon and it gave me the search for a connection screen. Another odd thing. After searching it produced the 1.0 Mbps connection. But here I noticed the name was off. It was a series of numbers and letters whereas my "connection name" is Stacey.
Somehow during the course of dooce, I lost my wireless signal and my computer found and connected to another network in the neighborhood. I hope for the sake of the person who owns this connection that the distance between my computer and their house made it so slow.
We have had such beautiful, warm weather lately. Above zero, low of mid-20. Even a high of 45. Of course, being Wisconsin there's this little voice in everyone's heads telling us not to get too used to it. There's still plenty of winter to be had. But it's just so nice to see my clean roof. To drive up a clear driveway. And, and!!! To see grass. It's dead grass. But hell, it's a different color than white, gray or a mix of white, gray and dirty-snow-brown.
The trade off last week was we didn't have much sun. No one complained because it was warm, overcast, grey weather. And to herald in the transition of the seasons, and to battle the winter grey-blahs, I changed my computer wallpaper. And I stocked up. I had a beautiful night scene of a park in New York City. Lots of explosion of color, plus some snow and a bridge over a frozen pond.
But having a winter scene tells the universe that I'm okay it's still winter. Just like having snowmen decorations and I love snow plaques on display conveys the message we want more. Go ahead, snow, we don't mind. Hence the taking down of all that relates to the white stuff.
Mom and I have that tradition every year. One of us declares it time for spring to start to think about coming. And these decorations discourage that, so we must remove them. Promptly. And without bias.
Okay, a little off track and back to the wallpaper. I needed to replace it. At first I went for the spring pictures, but then stopped because it's a little depressing because it is still winter. So I went for color instead. To combat the grey, I went for blue. Right now I have blue roses. They are somewhat gaudy and irredesent, but it makes me feel better to see the color. I have a couple more "blue" photos stocked to change when I don't feel like the blue roses any more.
I did something similar on my laptop a couple of months ago. At the end of fall when it was bleak--the trees let go all their leaves, there was no snow yet so the world outside was just brown, dead and ugly. I don't remember what I searched for but I got this photo of soap stacked at the market in Provence from webshots. It did the trick. Visually interesting and bursting with color. I had a hard time replacing it. i knew I wanted something with a lot of color.
I finally settled on this one. It's a photo of a Dale Chihuly instillation. From the description this one is on the ceiling. The album tags indicate it is from a Chihuly exhibit in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It would have been cool to see. Though I was happy with what was there when we went in 2005. I had seen some of Chihuly's work (other than in the Weidner Center) at the Children's Museum in Indianappolis.
Here's to warmer weather, the impending spring and the good things the week will bring.
I've been holding this tradition for at least four years, without a single thought. I love my Sundays.
Today, as I was partaking in my normal habit, my Internet connection went funny. I was receiving "server errors" and "page cannot load" messages. I checked my connection and it was amazingly slow 1.0 Mbps, where I normally have 11. No amount of refresh could make it pop back to normal, so I removed my wireless card.
When I put it back in it was blinking. Typically it blinks back and forth between the two lights as it's registering and achieving the hallowed connection. After connection is achieved Status stays on and Activity flickers. This was just a steady on-off. I double clicked on the icon and it gave me the search for a connection screen. Another odd thing. After searching it produced the 1.0 Mbps connection. But here I noticed the name was off. It was a series of numbers and letters whereas my "connection name" is Stacey.
Somehow during the course of dooce, I lost my wireless signal and my computer found and connected to another network in the neighborhood. I hope for the sake of the person who owns this connection that the distance between my computer and their house made it so slow.
We have had such beautiful, warm weather lately. Above zero, low of mid-20. Even a high of 45. Of course, being Wisconsin there's this little voice in everyone's heads telling us not to get too used to it. There's still plenty of winter to be had. But it's just so nice to see my clean roof. To drive up a clear driveway. And, and!!! To see grass. It's dead grass. But hell, it's a different color than white, gray or a mix of white, gray and dirty-snow-brown.
The trade off last week was we didn't have much sun. No one complained because it was warm, overcast, grey weather. And to herald in the transition of the seasons, and to battle the winter grey-blahs, I changed my computer wallpaper. And I stocked up. I had a beautiful night scene of a park in New York City. Lots of explosion of color, plus some snow and a bridge over a frozen pond.
But having a winter scene tells the universe that I'm okay it's still winter. Just like having snowmen decorations and I love snow plaques on display conveys the message we want more. Go ahead, snow, we don't mind. Hence the taking down of all that relates to the white stuff.
Mom and I have that tradition every year. One of us declares it time for spring to start to think about coming. And these decorations discourage that, so we must remove them. Promptly. And without bias.
Okay, a little off track and back to the wallpaper. I needed to replace it. At first I went for the spring pictures, but then stopped because it's a little depressing because it is still winter. So I went for color instead. To combat the grey, I went for blue. Right now I have blue roses. They are somewhat gaudy and irredesent, but it makes me feel better to see the color. I have a couple more "blue" photos stocked to change when I don't feel like the blue roses any more.
I did something similar on my laptop a couple of months ago. At the end of fall when it was bleak--the trees let go all their leaves, there was no snow yet so the world outside was just brown, dead and ugly. I don't remember what I searched for but I got this photo of soap stacked at the market in Provence from webshots. It did the trick. Visually interesting and bursting with color. I had a hard time replacing it. i knew I wanted something with a lot of color.
I finally settled on this one. It's a photo of a Dale Chihuly instillation. From the description this one is on the ceiling. The album tags indicate it is from a Chihuly exhibit in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. It would have been cool to see. Though I was happy with what was there when we went in 2005. I had seen some of Chihuly's work (other than in the Weidner Center) at the Children's Museum in Indianappolis.
Here's to warmer weather, the impending spring and the good things the week will bring.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
In the dark when there's no one listening
I just had to post this ... the first time I saw +44 on television. Check out Travis drumming with one hand. Vocals aren't the strongest on this performance, actually at a second listen, not that bad, rough start but Mark recovered. But my god the drumming.
This is the video for When Your Heart Stops Beating. To see and compare the awesomeness that is Travis Barker drumming (in fact you can search Travis Barker and drumming in You Tube and you'll get tons of awesomeness). The filming of this video is when he broke his wrist.
Can't. Type. More. Nothing. Coming. That's. Not. Obsessive. Great band. Talented Folks. (Way better than AVA) Ooops. :-)
This is the video for When Your Heart Stops Beating. To see and compare the awesomeness that is Travis Barker drumming (in fact you can search Travis Barker and drumming in You Tube and you'll get tons of awesomeness). The filming of this video is when he broke his wrist.
Can't. Type. More. Nothing. Coming. That's. Not. Obsessive. Great band. Talented Folks. (Way better than AVA) Ooops. :-)
Monday, February 9, 2009
The three things I learned from The Grammys
1. Kenny Chesney is friends with Morgan Freedman
2. Coldplay, though not the heaviest of rock bands, is more like limestone. A little lighter but just as charming.
3. BLINK182 IS BACK TOGETHER.
And to think I wasn't planning on watching The Grammys. When I heard "Together, the guys from Blink 182, Mark, Tom and Travis." I thought wow, someone really screwed up that writing. Then I realized it indeed was the trio, on the same stage, Mark and Tom actually close enough to touch.
It's the first time I've seen Travis since the plane crash, and I find it oddly-but-fittingly-funny that Travis, the man who almost died and still has his arm in a sling, opened the damn envelope. (Gotta love the run on sentence)
And what the hell is up with Tom's arm behind his back? Fingers crossed?
I have mixed feelings. Blink182 was one of my favorite bands, and I was disappointed I wouldn't get to hear their sound evolve further. But I also really like the work Mark and Travis did with +44. Summer 2009 cannot come fast enough.
And a random observation: Kid Rock is an interesting amalgamation, but truly talented. Through the years I've liked a couple of his songs. There's no doubt that he puts on a great show. He has an unique blend of rock and country. A mix perfected to satisfy rock fans but be tame enough for Top 40 Radio. He's oddly melodious when he's not rocking hard, rasping about drugs, booze or women. And to confuse conservatives even more, he's loyal to his hometown of Detroit and madly Patriotic.
BUT WHO THE HELL CARES?! BLINK 182 IS BACK TOGETHER!!
2. Coldplay, though not the heaviest of rock bands, is more like limestone. A little lighter but just as charming.
3. BLINK182 IS BACK TOGETHER.
And to think I wasn't planning on watching The Grammys. When I heard "Together, the guys from Blink 182, Mark, Tom and Travis." I thought wow, someone really screwed up that writing. Then I realized it indeed was the trio, on the same stage, Mark and Tom actually close enough to touch.
It's the first time I've seen Travis since the plane crash, and I find it oddly-but-fittingly-funny that Travis, the man who almost died and still has his arm in a sling, opened the damn envelope. (Gotta love the run on sentence)
And what the hell is up with Tom's arm behind his back? Fingers crossed?
I have mixed feelings. Blink182 was one of my favorite bands, and I was disappointed I wouldn't get to hear their sound evolve further. But I also really like the work Mark and Travis did with +44. Summer 2009 cannot come fast enough.
And a random observation: Kid Rock is an interesting amalgamation, but truly talented. Through the years I've liked a couple of his songs. There's no doubt that he puts on a great show. He has an unique blend of rock and country. A mix perfected to satisfy rock fans but be tame enough for Top 40 Radio. He's oddly melodious when he's not rocking hard, rasping about drugs, booze or women. And to confuse conservatives even more, he's loyal to his hometown of Detroit and madly Patriotic.
BUT WHO THE HELL CARES?! BLINK 182 IS BACK TOGETHER!!
Sunday, February 8, 2009
How I missed thee
I'MMMM BAAAAACK! Or did you not notice I was gone?
My laptop power adapter cord split open two weeks ago, exposing the wires. I tried to tape it back up to eek out a couple more days out of it, with no luck. Some research and a short wait for delivery later .... I'm back on the internet. And currently, sitting in bed, with a cup of coffee, watching the Sunday Morning Show.
Quite a different picture from three days ago. Three days ago I was curled up in the corner: shaking, rocking and foaming at the mouth. Withdrawl is a bitch.
My laptop power adapter cord split open two weeks ago, exposing the wires. I tried to tape it back up to eek out a couple more days out of it, with no luck. Some research and a short wait for delivery later .... I'm back on the internet. And currently, sitting in bed, with a cup of coffee, watching the Sunday Morning Show.
Quite a different picture from three days ago. Three days ago I was curled up in the corner: shaking, rocking and foaming at the mouth. Withdrawl is a bitch.
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