more change

As I've mentioned before I don't do change well. Today I have to accept a big change in my life, one of my best friends is moving to NYC to be with her boyfriend. I am super sad about it and yesterday I cried my eyes out off and on all day long. I know I have some growing to do because in a weird way it feels like getting dumped. I am afraid of so many things; in this case I am afraid she and I won't stay in touch and I will lose a friend I dearly love. As usual, it's all about me.

lots more responses...

I cannot believe how many men have responded to my sugar daddy ad, it's mildly shocking!

sugar daddy

Y'all are going to love this. Just for fun I posted an ad for a sugar daddy to see what sort of responses I would get, I get a sick pleasure out of that kind of thing. I figured I would post the better responses here for your reading enjoyment. As you wait, undoubtedly heady with anticipation, check out this site to find your own sugar daddy (or baby, if that's more your style): Who knew?

To read the responses click on the Sugar Daddies link to your left.

my heroine

Although I am a little embarrassed to admit it, NCIS is one of my favorite shows. If I could be anyone when I grow up it would be Abby Sciuto. She is equal parts weird, smart and respected for being really good at what she does. Most of all she seems to LOVE what she does! Of course, it is just a sill tv show. My other favorite show is CSI: Miami. Not only is it hip, slick and cool but it has an awesome soundtrack.

how to get under my skin

In the tradition of Dooce, I thought I would start a "how to annoy me" list:
1) Ask me if "we" are having fun yet. I can't speak for you but if you have to ask me that question there's a 99.99% chance that the answer is a resounding NO!
2) Pass me in the hall and say, "SMILE, it can't be that bad!" How do you know motherf*cker? It may actually be worse.
3) Talk to me while we are in neighboring bathroom stalls. Hell, talk to me in the bathroom at all; it's NOT the employee lounge.
4) Ask me for a sip of my drink; unless you are a blood relative or we are otherwise swapping bodily fluids.
5) Tell me I look tired. Have you not noticed that those dark circles under my eyes are a permanent affliction? I ALWAYS LOOK TIRED!
6) Suggest you might know a better way for me to keep my house clean. Unless you too live with three long-haired dogs and two cats don't even THINK about going there.
7) Argue with me about the validity of vegetarianism. Do not try to convince me I'm murdering vegetables and they might have feelings too. Look dumbass: no nervous system = no feelings.
8) Talk to my rack. What, you think I don't notice? Besides, they're not going to talk back so give it up.
9) Forward me urban legends that have been circulating for years. It's called Snopes, look into it.
10) Speak of yourself in the third person. Just don't.

playing grown up

I have to do something that is very scary for me but must be done if I am going to be true to myself. It has the potential to have a negative effect on my finances but I am (almost) willing to take that risk if it means having more serenity. It also may mean letting some people down and causing others to raise their eyebrows. Logically I know that is ok because they don't live my life and at the end of the day I am the only person who has to fall asleep withmy brain. However, on an emotional level it makes me feel frightened and unsure of myself.
My mom has told me how, when I was a kid in public kindergarten, every day I would come home crying about how bored I was. Eventually I was moved into first grade but that's a story for another day. The bottom line is, I feel like that five year old again, crying nearly every day and on the verge of a meltdown. Now it's not just boredom but also loneliness, frustration and confusion topped off with a healthy serving of incompetence.

But the boredom gets me every time.

oh joy

I woke up this morning with a really stiff neck and my first thought was, "uh-oh, it must be spinal meningitis!" Then I got up to investigate why my cat was making such a ruckus in the hall, only to find him staring at a partially mutilated gecko. He looked disappointed that his toy had become unresponsive. Disgusting. A little later I went in the bathroom to get ready and the first thing my foot landed on was the gecko's lost tail. What a great way to start another week of mundanity.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I didn't post over the weekend because I decided to spend more time with my friends and family than my computer. It was way more rewarding but damn I got behind on my emails. Over the course of the weekend my car died for the second time this month. I really wish the Breaking Things would limit themselves to one a month for my sanity's sake.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I decided to get involved with my neighborhood association in an attempt to do something about the impending development behind my house. Several folks are meeting at my house this evening to walk back there and check it out. It feels good to be involved, I figure I can't complain about it if I'm not doing anything abou it. I hope we can make a difference!

lonely

I wish I could talk about work here but I can't. I just wanted to say that, thank you and good evening.

ambiguity, part deux; or the importance of feeling useful

I used to think I was a self-starter, I have recently discovered that maybe I was wrong. Not that I want to be micro-managed (does anyone actually like to be micro-managed?) because I definitely do not want someone up in my business all the time. I do however thrive when I have a clear cut set of goals, expectations and duties. Apparently I need a sort of measuring stick against which to judge the quality of my work. Otherwise I grow bored and begin to languish.
I used to have a month's worth of outfits that matched, I used to have cute shoes, once I had a nice car. I let all that go and now I just want to have purpose.

except I have fun on rollercoasters

"Mood swings can quickly go from low to high and back again, and occur over periods of a few days and sometimes even hours. The person feels like he or she is on a roller coaster, with mood and energy changes that are out-of control and disabling."

I think my hair may be falling out. It's a small price to pay for getting a med cocktail that works. Besides, in the past seven months I've gotten to enjoy (in no particular order): nausea, loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, severe night sweats, unusual drowsiness, swollen lymph nodes, blurred vision, loss of memory, decrease in sexual desire, painful urination, change in sense of taste, a [potentially fatal] rash, akathisia, dizziness, impulsivity, anxiety, constipation and my personal favorite: hallucination. I don't really have extra hair to spare but I think wigs look better on me than crazy does.

ambiguity

Here is a link to my official job description. Let me know if you figure out what I'm supposed to be doing.

Look it's a doggie oreo!

Also known as "yes, I do walk all three by myself."

the view

Here are some photos of the view I get to enjoy every day on my way home from work. The view that is being threatened by the construction of new condos for rich people. I was not aware of a housing shortage here in Austin.

The really green part on the left at the dead end is my back yard.

every day is a crap shoot

Despite my surrender to the siren song of coconut cream pie last night, I woke up in a fairly good mood this morning. I was having intense dreams about rearranging furniture, I wonder what that means? Perhaps it is because I am once again considering the idea of getting a roommate and I have been thinking a lot about how can I possibly make room for her. It's amazing how quickly one person can take over and fill up a three bedroom house. Granted, my house is smaller than some one bedroom apartments and apparently the walk-in closet had not yet been discovered in the 1960s. My four tiny closets are probably equal to the walk-in closet from my 1970s childhood bedroom. Nevertheless, over the past 9+ years there have been stretches of time that I managed to live with two other roommates fairly comfortably. How did I accumulate so much stuff? I am a tidy packrat.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I recently learned that the city has approved a development of 60+ "luxury condominiums" to be built within 300 feet of my property line. I don't handle change well anyway but this news upsets me for two main reason: 1) access to the development will mean opening up the dead-end street that runs behind my house resulting in new traffic and 2) they will be clearing out a large area of trees that is currently untouched and beautiful, one of my favorite parts of my drive home. That makes me feel very, very sad. Helpless and sad.

passion

I recently read an article about Susan Sarandon's secrets to inner beauty, she said "Anything that makes you feel passionate and makes you laugh helps you to stay young." The article said her passions are world peace and other global issues. If I think too hard about world peace and other global issues I start to feel very sad; I certainly don't feel much like laughing. I do understand the importance of finding passion in my life, my dilemma is how does one go about finding that passion if it is not innate? I desire to be really good at something, even if it is just one thing. As it happens, my current occupation is not that one thing. I'm terrified of waking up one day to discover I've spent 25 years in a passionless occupation and in the process forgot to seek out my passion elsewhere.

weekend's end

It's Sunday evening, that means I have to go back to work in roughly twelve hours. I am especially unhappy about that fact today because my pager went off at exactly 5:13 a.m. Like every other weekend I've been on call something weird and stupid happened to prevent me from connecting to my job's network, resulting in my trying to trouble shoot before 6:00 on a Sunday morning. That is just not good for anyone involved. Because of said weird and stupid issue my pager continued to go off every thirty minutes until just before 8 a.m. when my boss responded to my S.O.S. page. I hate it when I have to do that; I hate feeling like I appear incompetent. By the time I connected to the network the original problem had been resolved, presumably by my boss.
Around 8:30 I decided to respond to a ridculous message left on my answering machine yesterday by one of the Dating Disasters; Spring '05. He is the one with poor impulse control and to whom I have not spoken in two weeks. The message said something about "blah, blah, blah...I hope you're doing well...blah, blah, blah...I'm doing great...blah, blah, blah." Awfully presumptuous of him to think I give a rat's arse how he is doing and then stunningly self-absorbed that he found it necessary to let me know. The gist of my text message to him was short & sweet, "don't contact me anymore". His response? "Don't worry, I won't." What a tool.
I made it to brunch with my family at 9:30 where I proceeded to weep at the mere idea of making a decision about what to eat, there were too many choices for my exhausted brain. I fear my family is growing tired of my emotional meltdowns, especially the public ones. Bonus: we had a Lance Armstrong sighting at the restaurant.
Thankfully there was one great success today: I somehow managed to get my yard mowed. My grass had gotten so tall that my dogs were getting lost. There were weeds in the middle of the lawn that looked like cornstalks. It was wholly out of control. Getting that kind of yard work done is a major endeavor for someone like me who is battling spontaneous weeping fits and a general lack of emotional stability. However, I was afraid if I didn't take care of it soon I would have to rent a piece of farm equipment to mow it down. Sweet baby jesus it is done, now I just have to figure out how to make my weedeater work.

dating

I recently decided to give dating a try again after an appropriate recuperation period from the Great Disappointment; Winter '04. I have to say, dating in the new millennium sucks. Or maybe it has always sucked, I just didn't do much dating before the new millennium. I would previously meet a guy and before I realized what had happened he was my boyfriend. Now I'm into the whole courtship thing but apparently part of my brain is still picking the instaboyfriend type of guys it has picked since I was fifteen. Damn. I didn't know it was considered appropriate to invite yourself to spend the night with a woman before taking her out to dinner. Or how about requesting oral sex before any heavy petting has occurred? Or my recent favorite, "We will make a great boyfriend-girlfriend couple one day" exactly four days before finding out he's been banging a woman I know the entire time he's been aggressively trying to get in my pants. *sigh* What happened to friendly dates? Getting to know each other? Being respectful? It seems the older I get the more I become a Prudence McPrudesville which is truly just fine with me.

no more late night pie

I woke up easier today, I've decided that eating sugar in the evening gives me a sort of emotional hangover the next morning. So I'm trying to avoid late night pie and it seems to be helping a little. However, as the day went on it turned into an emotional landslide and by the time I was in my car on the way to my Talking Lady the uncontrollable weeping began. She assured me that it's chemical and that my appointment with the Doctor tomorrow is just in time.
I am trying to mold myself into a knitter; the knitting helps me focus and calm down. I taught myself the knit & purl stitches from a book one of my fabulous and crafty girlfriends gave me. That in & of itself was quite satisfying, now if I can just figure out which row of stitches I was on when I set the knitting down maybe one day I will be able to make something wearable.

ten reasons

Ten Reasons that the past twelve months have been mind-bogglingly life-altering:
1) I celebrated two years of sobriety
2) I watched one of my cats get murdered in my yard by my neighbor's pit bull
3) I had my tonsils removed and had to allow my mom to take care of me afterwards
4) I decided to end twenty months of celibacy with an ultimately disappointing relationship that crashed and burned after only four months
5) I was offered and accepted two promotions
6) I finally accepted the diagnosis of my "major mental illness" and have gone through three psychiatrists and six medications trying to get my cocktail right
7) I started a craft business with my sister and we sold some of our jewelry to a local branch of a major national retailer
8) I met a man, in a most coincidental way, whom I feel is my mindmeldsoulbrother but for reasons completely beyond my control he is absolutely unavailable to me
9) I have to say goodbye to one of one of my best friends as her journey takes her to another state
10) I got to welcome another one of my best friends home after years of living in another state

photography

This weekend I had the opportunity to see Annie Leibovitz's exhibit called "American Music." I highly recommend it to anyone who loves photography and music. It made me want to put film in my Canon and carry it around everywhere with me.

anxiety

When I wake up drenched in sweat and on the verge of an anxiety attack I know I'm in trouble. Before I even open my eyes I'm worrying about how I'm going to pay my bills next month. What am I going to do about my career? Why didn't that guy call me back? What will I do when my dogs die? What if my house falls apart? When will I mow my yard? Will anything be fun for me again?
So I start making my bed up around me and the prayers begin. Please remove my fears. Please redirect my obsessive thoughts. Please help me trust that everything will turn out ok. Please help me stay in the present. I am allowing my life to slip through my fingers while I ardently nurse irrational fears about my future. I haven't even gotten out of my bed yet.
The dogs wake up and rally around me, my three spots of joy, my reason for getting out of bed. I thank the universe for my dogs.
My feet hit the floor and the masquerade begins, the one where I act as if I am a functioning member of society. Feed dogs, drink coffee, take shower, get dressed, drive to work, say hi to coworkers, smile and pretend that I understand what is going on around me.
Laugh or the weeping will never stop.

inspiration

I had a moment of clarity today whilst reading the blog of one heather.
I am not sure what makes some blogs international sensations (she made the bbc, y'all) but I'm hooked. I go from blog to blog to blog, "leapblogging" you might call it. I have learned all kinds of fascinating information in this week alone; thanks to heather I know not to talk about my job or my coworkers here. For now I will just introduce myself while I warm up to the idea of dumping my life on the internet for other voyeuristic junkies like me to (presumably) read. I have lived my entire life in Austin, Texas and I hate the heat. However, because I'm also "mentally interesting" and thrive on sunshine I welcome the Texas summers after the melodramatic darkness of the rainy winters. I am single, no spawn, but I live with two cats and three dogs that I love more than just about anything else. I'm currently gripped with an irrational fear of my oldest and most favorite dog's death. He is not sick. The only family I have is my sister, who is my best friend, and my parents; all of whom live in this town. We do dorky stuff like play trivial pursuit on father's day and scrabble until 2am on Christmas Day. I have a tiny old house that I've owned for over nine years and I'm gripped with another, perhaps more rational, fear that it is on the verge of crumbling around me. Houses will do that if you don't take care of them and I have not been a good house caretaker. I have the most fabulous girlfriends anyone could ask for. Each one of them is beautiful, talented, intelligent and hilarious in her own special way. For work I am called a unix systems administrator and I report to a State Government Agency. That's all I will say on that subject...for now anyway.