Category: Uncategorized

Talked to Jen again last night. No change. I tried to explain… tried to talk… but I don’t think she’s really in a position, as a person, to really understand and grasp what I was trying to get across – or it’s something she doesn’t want to be true. It doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t hear from her again any time soon.

I’ve been working all weekend on the redesign. Well, on one half of the redesign. I tried showing a couple of people the work-in-progress, and … they didn’t understand. Either because they don’t understand the nature of Modern Evil or they don’t understand how web design works for content-based sites (ie: there is a main page – a portal, though I loathe the term – that links everyone to the content they’re looking for, and there are all the content pages, and there is a design that is for the main page and a design that is for the content pages, and while they should have some in-kind navigational elements, they should not actually be alike) or they’re using IE on Windows, and it look slike crap because IE doesn’t know how to use PNGs. Which sucks, but I guess my website will have to detect what browser people are using, and redirect them to … Mozilla, I guess, to get Firefox or somesuch functional browser.

Anyway, I’ll keep working tomorrow on it, and hopefully I’ll make the progress I need to make to get to the second half of the design (ie: the design for every single page but the main one) and whip that out, too. I’ll probably put the new main page design up anyway, even if it links to content pages of the old style. I am confident I’ll be reasonably happy with it by the end of the night tomorrow, barring any actual social activities. Sigh

Ahhhh… barring social activities. As though they needed to be barred to keep them out of my life. I went to the movies with my sister on Friday night. That’s something. Monday night I’ll almost definitely get to the Willow House for the on-going Monday-night writers meeting, and that’s social. That’s the residue of the most sociality I’ve experienced in the last couple/few years, and it peaked around mid-November. But it’s better than just coming home again, seeing no one, like I do every other night. So now is better than before, because instead of just going to the movies every weekend whether I have someone to go with or not, I also have this writers meeting to go to on Monday nights (assuming people are indefinitely able and willing to provide transportation – I live nowhere near any of them, OR the Willow House). So that’s better. But I still feel … un-social. Cut off, actually.

…

There is so much more I want to say, but won’t. The excuse tonight is it’s late and I’m tired and I have a long day of web-design ahead of me and blah blah blah. What I really want to do is take the car on the one day a week that neither my father nor I have it at work all day and go somewhere. But I guess he’s taking part of it apart tomorrow when he isn’t driving it to church. So now instead of wanting to go somewhere, do something tomorrow, I just hope that the car will work when I need to get to work on Monday morning.

I really am tired.

Stupid body.

Awesome.

Tomorrow (today, I should be sleeping) is going to be a long day.

Get up early, go to downtown Scottsdale before 8AM for a Focus Group. 9 hours. Pays good, though.

Then drive up to Jillian’s at 6 for the TGIO NaNoWriMo Party. Which will apparently then head over to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Spectrum Mall, which will keep me out no earlier than one or two in the AM tomorrow.

And then home again home again.

Where I will again have trouble taking off my left shoe, because the fabric in the back has been falling apart and now climbs up to trap my heel when I try to pull it off. I guess it’s shoes on my Christmas List this year.

I have just watched Apocalypse Now for the first time.

I don’t get it.

To pinpoint part of my problems with it: My brother walked in halfway through and asked what I was watching, so I told him it was ‘Apocalypse Now’. As he watched some of it with me, he asked “Why is it called Apocalypse Now?” and I tried to come up with an answer. I’ve seen the whole thing now, and I’m not even really clear on that one point.

Let alone the point of the movie.

It’s really “artistic”, definitely interesting, but … yeah. I don’t get it.

Then again, I don’t really understand the modern medical industry either, leading me to not go to doctors, ever. I so much can’t wrap my mind around it that I am paralyzed with lengthy anxiety attacks just trying to figure out what, if any, medical insurance option I should choose at work. I mean, I can see the words in front of me describing the plans, this is this, that is that, you pay this much and if you need this service it’s covered this percent, except that in addition to paying your monthly fee, you pay a co-pay for everything, plus if it’s the beginning of the year you pay the regular fees as well, up to your “deductible” and then maybe you get help, but maybe you just get referred to another doctor and you start paying fees again? And this plan gives you more managed care and that one gives you more doctors to choose from and these give you a little bit of coverage before you have to get into the whole “deductible” debacle… and I can read those options, but I can’t figure out which I might want, because I don’t understand what my relationship with the medical industry is supposed to be like.

My family never had insurance, couldn’t really afford doctors and in addition to that, seems prone to self-medicating and hypochondria. So when we got sick we got fluids and bedrest and then better, if anything. Myself, when I get symptoms other than plain jane pain, I mostly just ignore them – I pay attention enough that if anything doesn’t get better after a week, or gets seriously worse very quickly I don’t overlook it and die, but not much else. Like right now I have a teeny bit of soreness in my throat when I swallow. So I’ll try to get plenty of sleep tonight. Maybe take some extra ascorbic acid.

Am I supposed to go see a doctor every time I get more than a tickle in the back of my throat? Is that a normal thing to do? What about my sleep apnea, tinitis, high heart rate, shallow breathing, and poor circulation? What about my weight problem? Or my dandruff and itchy scalp? Or the frequent pain in some of my joints, me left knee in particular? Or my daily back pain? Or the occassional pain I seem to get from repetitive stress in my wrists if I don’t keep them active in more ways than just typing and mousing? Or my gastrointestinal difficulties? What about my mood swings? What about my frequent, often debilitating anxiety attacks and general difficulty with stress? How often should I be going to see a doctor? How small of a problem is enough to get a professional involved?

And if we come up with an answer to that question, then will we know which medical insurance option is right for me?

I don’t get it, so I just ignore it mostly. Take pain relivers when I can’t or don’t want to work through pain. Take relora to help handle the extremes of my stress. Try not to think about any of it too much. Except then these Benefits meetings come around, and I don’t know what to do or say or think or ASK, and I try to figure it out and I get stressed out.

There’s a number around here somewhere, a free benefit for handling a variety of personal problems privately. So if one were depressed, one could call the number and get connected to a professional that specializes in treating depression, and the first three sessions with the professional on each individual incident is included for free without ever contacting your employer. If you need more than three sessions, payment options can be worked out confidentially. They can also help with other issues, such as budgeting, general counseling, supposed to be most anything, they can get you in touch with the professional you need. This paragraph was setup for the next line:

Every time I try to figure out about the medical industry and what medical insurance option I should choose, I get so stressed out that I consider calling the number to talk to an anxiety counselor about my total ignorance re: how/why/when to use doctors and select insurance.

So, that’s that for now. I don’t get it.

And unfortunately for those of you who read this far (or just scrolled down) to find the small panda, there is, in fact, no panda.

Here’s an interesting observation I would have made this morning if I hadn’t been still working on what had kept me up so late last night (trying to get my novel edited and covered and online in time to order it today) right up until I left for work:

Last night I didn’t get to bed until a little after 3AM, and it was just before I lay down to sleep that I remembered to put my cellphone on its charger. When it woke me up a little after 6AM, it wasn’t finished charging yet, but I was expected to be. I left it, and myself, snoozing for an extra half hour or so, but then we both had to go face the day – full charge or not.

Now, I got through the day fine on the amount of charge I got; look at me, still going after midnight. But my phone spent the whole day at three bars. I’ve got it on the charger again. On a full charge, it can go over eight days without another nap, since I upgraded its battery. Where can I get an upgrade for myself to go eight days without a recharge?