I've moved

Maybe, I'm giving wordpress a chance right now, let's see how it goes:
I am (still) not a reliable narrator

Goodbye weekend,

Jeremy is in Chicago for our friend Thomas's wedding, so it's just me and Oliver here at Casa de Pain. I've spent most the weekend typing my draft up on the computer. I've got 20 pages of 62 on here so far and have been shouting at myself over inconsistincies but not too much. They're all pretty small and can be sorted later. i'm kicking myself for not using notecards to keep all my strands untangled sooner.

It's suddenly sunny and beautiful in London this weekend so I've been out for long walks yesterday and today and had a really awesome roast dinner at a new pub in Nunhead today. roast beef = yum. But mostly I've been sequestered in the second bedroom either typing and editing or watching old epidsodes of ANTM and project Runway online while I knit.

It's been a pretty awesome weekend.

I've got physio therapy for the demon costochondritis on tuesday. i'm hoping it will help me get off the cocodamol because they mae me feel pretty grody and don't even take all the pain away and that, friends, is lame as hell.

And tomorrow it's back to work in the city where hopefully the very large investment bank I work for will not be shutting down (actually they seem to be clinging on by their stubby stubby finernails, so fingers crossed) because I totally don't want to find a new job or get transferred to some dank mailroom someplace. Fingers crossed.

These, the trials of my life

So I left work early today because the cocodamol my GP prescribed for the costochondritis is doing bad things to my stomach. I struggled homeward on the bus fighting not to spew. When I changed buses in Peckham there was a large woman standing in front of my and blocking the aisle so I said excuse me and pushed past her only to hear her inform me under her breath that I should have said excuse me. I turned and wished I could vomit on command before saying, "I did say excuse me." And she said again as I turned, "If you wanted to go by you should have said excuse me." And all I could think was FUCK YOU!!! But I said instead, "I'm sorry if I upset you, I didn't mean to, but I did say excuse me." And she said all bitchy like, "Just go sit down." So I did because I felt like hell, but when she got off at the next stop, I took the high road, and stuck my tongue out at her. Not as effective as vomiting on command, but I think I still got my point across.

I'm like those sickly Victorian ladies

So there's a new thing wrong with me. The cartilage around the ribs in my chest is swollen and painful. This is called costochondritis. There is no real real reason for it. When I asked the doctor if it might be related to the reactive arthritis she just sort of stared at me blankly. Do you think doctors take a class in blank stares? Because all my doctors are really good at blank stares. I've also got a scratchy throat and a stuffy head. These wouldn't be so bad except the costochondritis makes it really painful to sneeze, cough or blow my nose right now, so the average common cold is knocked up to a new and exciting level.

Otherwise all is well. Work is busy, I'm writing steadily outside of work, the rainy weatrher makes my cat cuddly, and I managed to find the pilot of the new 90210 on line yesterday while I was home sick from work. Sadly the soundtrack was all out of whack with the action and the plot was pretty hackneyed and the girls were all scary skinny (and why'd they have to diss Ahndrea Zuckerman's kid like that, huh?) but I still have hopes for the following episodes, as long as Brenda sticks around I'm in it for the long haul. Now I just have to check out the new cycle of ANTM and all my American tv needs will be met.

I haven't watched any footage of the RNC because just reading about it freaks me out. Were they really seriously, without irony, yelling "Drill, baby, drill" while Palin was speaking? Really? Do people do that?

Despite my fear of the RNC I've still been really homesick lately. Our flyby trip to detroit and Chicago has made me feel just weird. I don't know that I want to move back to the states right now, but I feel like it would be nice to spend a month there just hanging out and actually having enough time to see people and do all the things I miss.

And in general what the fuck news, Jeremy got a call from a recruiter in Kazakhstan. And maybe I shouldn't be so hasty to judge a country based on the Borat movie, but I'm pretty happy he told the guy we'd rather stay in London for now. Not that there aren't lovely parts of Kazhakstan, I'm sure there are, just no thanks. Why don't recruiters from Paris or Rome ever call us? That's what I wanna know.

damn

1. Willie (see post below) has totally got me down. My legs have been sore all day, my stomach is full of cramps and nausea and I am just generally tired and feeling run down. Fucking Willie. The Feminax with naproxen that I bought is only just barely helping, that hardly seems right, it's supposed to be stronger than Feminax classic, but clearly today it is not. Stupid.
2. They've totally tightened up the internet filter at my office which means so long to Facebook, farewell to commenting on Blogger, arrivederci to posting anything on Blogger really, and one big boo to the man. At least I can still get on to I Can Has Cheezburger and GoFugYourself. It could be worse.
3. really those are they only two things vexing me at the moment, but I have cramps and aches and that makes every worse! Everything!
   

So on Thursday when I was sitting at the dining room table all creating life in my notebooks and everything while I listened to The Essential Willie Nelson (recently purchased for a rock bottom price at Encore Records in Ann Arbor Mi) and that classic torch song You Were Always on My Mind started to play and me, I seriously started to cry. My nose started to twitch and then my eyes watered and I was crying! Seriously Willie, why you gotta pull that shit? I was shocked at such a display, true it was a private display, but I was shocked nonetheless. Later in the day while I considered ripping out the throat of anyone, yes anyone at all, small children and old kindly women were not exempt, who dared to call me on my office line to you know ask questions about my job and how to use the database or you know ask me to do any of the things I am paid to do I realized that maybe Willie was not entirely to blame. Maybe, just maybe, I was suffering from PMS.
And now as I think about this and suffer from the cramps that herald the end of PMS and the beginning of 5-7 days of ache I realize that I have never had a stupid name for my period. Maybe I'll call it Flo occasionally or My Monthly Visitor when I am feeling all retro or when I make fun of Mrs Biddle my 9th grade gym teacher I call it "that ti-yime of the muhnth" in an exaggerated southern accent but that's only because I'm in character. Anyhow, I think I may call my period Willie from now on, just when I'm in mixed company mind, when it's just me and Jeremy I shall continue on referring to it as this curse of Eve sent down by that bastard god to punish me for daring to be born a woman, but like that's too long for when I just need to say something like, "Oh Willie's in town, better stock up on the Feminax." And really, Willie and my period are the only two characters in my life who can reduce me to tears without even the tiniest notice.

Probably, I should never put disc 2 of The Essential Willie Nelson on random play. The results could be dangerous.

Things I hate and love

Outside of really big bad things, you know like war and poverty and racism and assholes, these are some things I really can't stand:

1. Stepping in poop of indeterminate origin less than ten steps from my house in the morning (actually I still hate stepping in poop with a clear origin, but indeterminate feces is somehow just a little bit worse). It's really hard to get poop off your shoes. And it smells bad. Hate.
2. Taking the bus on a rainy day. Because it's overcrowded and everyone smells worse than they normally do. The bus on a normal day is bad enough but add rain and it becomes nigh intolerable.
3. The bug bite on my shin. Something in Michigan bit me and it still itches and is huge! Stupid Michigan bugs.
4. Having to work totally sucks. For real, someone should just pay me for being me and therefore being awesome. I have been saying this for a long time. When will the people listen? When?
5. PMS. Sometimes I can feel it building up. The bitchery starts small, like with hand gestures at the telephone when people ask me stupid questions about scanning documents (It's not rocket science, jerks!) and then grows and grows until I am spewing curse words at small children while swigging cheap red wine and begging strangers for cigarettes. Sometimes it sneak attacks and I go from Sweetie Pie Jones to Cruella DeVille in 2 seconds over the fact that someone moved my paperclip! MY PAPERCLIP!!!

And these are some things I love (again excluding the obvious like Jeremy and Oliver the cat and Top Shelf Ramen Noodles and the color green)

1. My neices. They're all rock solid awesome. The eldest is 16 and smart as hell. She takes college courses in the mornings and high school course in the afternoon. When she's done with high school she'll probably have the first two years of college finished and out of her way. She is also very pretty and awesome. The middle is equally awesome, she is obsessed with puppies (thus making her easy to bribe) cute as a freaking button and bright as hell, at 7 she is already a lot of fun to talk to and still giggles and looks at me like I'm a nut when I ask her if she's married yet and make other stupid jokes. And the littlest at 2 is fast becoming an evil genius. She's taken to stealing the other kids' socks at daycare and then she sits on said socks so that they will never be discovered! And no, she is not some mammoth thug baby, kid just wants more socks and has figured out a way to procure them. Also, she is adorable. My neices are awesome.
2. Sleeping in and then reading a book for an hour in bed before actually moving downstairs. This is the ultimate decadence. If I just had a butler who would serve me coffee whilst I leisurely read in bed life would be perfect.
3. My bathroom. It is beautiful and has a big tub and a heated floor. Therefore, I love it.
4. New bedding. We just bought new sheets when we were back in the Americas and oh god they are the best ever. They are just from Target but they are sooo soooo soooooo soft and comfy and 2 more sets will be arriving soon in the box we are having shipped over! Hooray for the 4-500 thread count! And new down pillows too!
5. Getting compliments. Compliments are awesome and I love them. Last week I got compliments on my shoes ("When I saw you'd changed into your Converse I was really psyched because I knew you meant business about dancing." And I did!), my bag (That's a sweet bag!" It is!) and 6 on my blue Italian necklace (although Jeremy claims these are compliments to him because he picked it out, but they are not because he would look silly wearing it whereas I looked awesome.) and they all made me feel really nice which makes me want to give out more compliments in the hopes that even more compliments will come my way. Have I mentioned how pretty you all are? Because you are one devastating bunch!