It's all mine!

Today I am experiencing a mixture of overwhelming excitement and stomach-churning dread.  In the wee hours of the morning, I made the final payment on my car.  It's actually a month early, but I went ahead and paid the balance just to be finished with the darned thing.  I feel like celebrating and throwing up all at the same time.  With my luck, the engine will just drop out of the thing while I'm driving home tonight.

Smoking and lippy, the remix

Not long ago, I wrote an entire post about two things: my lip-product addiction, and smoking.  Apparently those things are quite important in my life, because once again they have been on my mind enough that I feel the need to revisit the topics.

 

I have, unfortunately, fallen off the wagon with smoking.  I can no longer proudly say that I'm a non-smoker.  I can say that I smoke much, much less than I did in my previous smoker incarnation, but I am nonetheless a smoker again.  Rather than smoking over a pack a day, over the last couple of months I have settled into a 2-3 packs per week habit, with the majority of that happening during weekend socializing.

 

But the one or two that I smoke during the workday has had a huge impact.  And by that, I mean my work socialization has jumped like crazy.  Since I'd quit smoking before I started this job, taking a smoke break here is a new thing.  I'm generally quiet and keep to myself at work, and had forgotten how smokers' camaraderie could be.  There are people I've seen almost daily for over a year now, and we've barely done more than nod to one another.  But now that they've run into me in the smoking area, they've struck up conversations, made little jokes, talked about work, etc.  I've learned more about the insider workings, machinations, and gossip in this company during smoke breaks in the past month, than I have in a year.

 

~*~*~

 

Since I began smoking again, I noticed that my lippy addiction grew again.  I mean, I've always had it, but it did get less when I wasn't smoking.  But the return of moisture-sucking cigarette filters meant a higher need for oral emollients, and I was back on high levels of the stuff.  It hit me this past weekend, when I realized that I had more lip products just in my bag than some people own.

 

At this very moment, this is what I have on me: an Avon "Sweet Spells" lip balm (smells like candy corn); a Kiss My Face cranberry orange spf 15 lip balm; a Blistex Fruit Smoothies strawberry-banana spf 15 lip balm; a Body Shop hemp lip balm with beeswax; a Mary Kay apple berry lipstick; and a Mary Kay sugarberry lip gloss.

 

Six lip products.  Seriously.  And I have more at home; those 6 just happen to be in my bag right now.  In my defense, the Kiss My Face just joined me last weekend as a gift from a fellow lippy addict... who also gave me the most delicious butter crème lip gloss for my birthday a couple of weeks ago.  Of course, I can't complain, since I often gift her household with lippy as well.  Ah well, it is what it is.

Do you hear that?

I giggled a lot. A lot. Then I looked behind the shower curtain...

Shit!

I swear I will post all about how wonderful Hootenanny was before the month is up.  Really.  But something else has happened.  I didn't go in to work yesterday because I'm sick.  I came in today, even though I'm still hacking and blowing and feverish and all, only to discover that 43 employees here at HQ were laid off yesterday.  And that more lay offs are expected.

 

!!!!!

 

Let me reiterate: 43 employees HERE, not company/worldwide.  Right here at corporate headquarters.  Which is roughly 10% of the people working here.  Holy shit.  I might be unemployed again before the week is up.  Fuck.

Invisible woman part 2, or "Her Giant (Baboon) Ass"

Okay, now back to Gluteus Giganticus: So, yeah, I need to lose a stupid amount of weight, because I have gained a stupid amount of weight.  It is negatively influencing my blood pressure, edema, and my menstrual cycles (WHAT menstrual cycles?!?).

 

I have not had regular cycles since my miscarriage, which is normal for a bit.  But it never improved, and now I know it's because of the weight gain.  My new ob-gyn is increasing my metformin to 1000mg, as I was on a super-low dose of 500mg.  She wants it more like 1500-2000mg, but doesn't want me to blow out an O-ring, so we'll gradually increase it over the next few months.

 

When I thought about my upcoming vacation, I thought, "Well, as weird as it is, I'm kinda glad I'm having mega 2-3 month cycles right now.  Since I just got my period at the end of May, I won't have to worry about the Red Sea when I go on vacation over Fourth of July weekend."

 

Guess who increased their metformin dose around cd11?  Guess who unexpectedly ovulated around cd23?  Guess who, by their best estimate, will not only have their period, but will be having their heaviest flow on the same day as an all-day, outdoors in the middle of nowhere music festival, whilst on their first vacation in two years?

 

Yay me!

 

So, keep an eye peeled for a post-vacation update featuring embarrassing moments like baboon-red asses from bleeding through while waiting in mile-long porta-potty lines.  Huzzah!

I'm the invisible woman!

The image in my head is the second scene of "Connie and Carla", where the fearless singers/performers are giving their all as they perform in front of a listless and uncaring –not to mention sparse-- crowd in an airport lounge.

 

I'm fairly certain I hear crickets.  I know that by now there very few people who bother to check in here anymore, seeing as I update about as frequently as Pepe LePew scores with that hot little black pussycat.  I just seem to be caught in a weird state of apathetic mediocrity: I'm neither terribly sad, nor freakishly happy; I'm fairly bland and blah.  And when I think about writing about that bland and blah, I just kinda go… ehhhh.

 

At Work:

There have been scary layoffs at work in the last couple of months.  It seemed like every Monday, we'd hear about people who left the previous Friday for the last time.  Thankfully, I haven't heard of any recent layoffs in the last two weeks, and I'm really hoping it's over for now.  Even though our VP/Controller told us in Financial Reporting that our department had no planned staff reductions—seeing as we're already stretched stupidly thin—I've been the victim of layoffs before, and know that no one is safe, no matter what someone says in a meeting.

 

 

At Home:

I have a new ob-gyn, an older Indian lady who works in a labcoat-covered sari.  I wasn't sure if I was going to like her, as she is so blunt and to the point about everything that it is almost—almost—offensive.  But I decided that I could handle that, and even like it a little bit, having someone I know isn't going to sugarcoat things or beat around the bush.  This woman tells it like it is, and if you don't like it, tough.  The fact that she has an incredibly thriving practice should tell you something, though.

 

 

My General Health:

Is shit.  I can't believe I'm going to actually put this in writing, set in stone so to speak, for all posterity.  Since my miscarriage 17 months ago, I have gained 40 pounds.

 

40.

 

Forty.

 

Yes, that's a 4 with a 0 behind it.  And seeing as I was already generously-sized, this is just ridiculous.  Apparently depression + quitting a pack a day + apathy= an even bigger ass.  Who knew?  I have been smoking more lately, probably in shock over the size of my ass, but it's still a fairly small and manageable addiction at a pack a fortnight.  I don't think the smoking will increase much more, since I will not smoke inside and it's too blazing hot to go outside too often to smoke.

 

***

A quick aside, speaking of the weather: We skipped the end of spring.  One day it was spring weather, and then we had tornados a couple of weekends ago.  When the haze of the tornados passed, it was suddenly freaking, full-blown SUMMER.  It was 100 degrees yesterday, I kid you not.

 

I'm going to California on vacation next week, and was looking at weather projections and averages.  Dude.  Their so-called HIGHS?  Um, yeah, they're about equal to our LOWS.  And out there, I won't be struggling to breathe air that's like steam.  I can't wait.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I went book shopping tonight and stumbled across this little promising gem. Here's the official blurb, 'cause I (obviously) haven't read it yet myself:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.

What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you'd actually want to read.