The Cake Blog

My grades for the semester posted today.  I got all A's!!!!!  So now I'm sitting on 25 credit hours (that would be credit hours earned this semester, last semester, and last summer semester), and I have a "cumulative GPA" of 4.0 plus Dean's List.  Yes, sometimes school transfers help you out ..... LOTS.  I'm thrilled.

Kids were very cute today. During a one on one dialogue session, one girl froze, her mouth in a huge O and she stared at me for a full 5 seconds, having forgotten what she was supposed to say. There was also a new girl, a guest student and during the lunch break, her mother came up to talk to me. She called me sensei and treated me with a lot more respect than a non-degree holding person like me generally gets so it was kind of a shock. Turns out this girl's father is living in Denver, CO for business while she and the girl live in Tokyo. I don't think I could be happy with that if I had a family.

After lunch, we played on the swings. Everyone likes free pushes but now my arms hurt. One particularly troublesome boy kept assaulting my shoulders and pinching them, like grabbing a whole handful of flesh and squeezing. So I chased him down and spun him around telling him to cut it out. I think he felt a small amount of remorse (although he has the face of a mass murderer and I feel bad for saying that but it's true) because he was always quick to take my rocks from me while we were cleaning the field.

The cutie, Kousei, said he could carry me. Little 2nd year student. I told him I was too heavy but he insisted he could. As a demo, he picked up the principal. I figured if he could carry her and no lawsuits were flying her way, I would be ok.

We fell into the dirt today. Kousei looked really sad (this is the same kid who said he loved me last time I was there) so I said he could try again. After he staggered a couple steps under my weight, he looked very proud of himself so all was right with the world again. But it feels weird to be picked up by a 2nd grader, mostly because it brings up images of child labor and then camels. I prefer Mark to carry me around.

Anyone on my flist planning on attending the 2008 China Olympics?

If so, make sure to let me know how the scorpions are this time of the year.

...and don't let me know how the dog brains are. That's something I never want to know.

AWESOME.



::squee::

So much fun I cannot elaborate at this time. Rest assured I am a very happy girl. :)

During the day I'm fine, all good and dandy. i really don't feel like the prozac changes me or anything so that's cool but at night, maybe when it wears off or whatever I get depressed

I hate being alone and for some reason I feel soo alone lately. I just can't shake that feeling, especially at night.

And I've been getting anxiety attacks a lot. Like not every day but on some days it's quite a few.
I haven't started the yaz yet but it's getting close and this post might be a mild version of the normal once a month depression because that's kinda how I feel, but last night I felt like that too..

So I'm not sure.

I'm going to Houston tomorrow I'll be there until the next day. Josh gets in town that day and mom will be here around then too..we'll see we'll see...

One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Recall Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said;
"FEED YOUR HEAD"

Best Song Ever. :]

Remember, Kids- feed your head! And remember- it's all in your head. Trust me. I'm almost a doctor. :]

I smell chocolate. It makes me crave hot Milo. Mmm hot Milo.

I'm supposed to be doing my critical commentary now WHY AM I NOT FOCUSING?!

ARGHHH

• 10:58 is busybusybusy! #
• 21:14 Listening to: Alan Jackson - Little Bitty tinyurl.com/yweh9y #

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Glommed from octoberland.

First, great love for the Friendslist. You are all wonderful people, and I am glad.

I had an interview this evening for a part time job. Social commerce, working from home, being able to keep weird hours... it is made for me. If I don't get it, I may have to take to my bed for a week in despair.

The air conditioning was out for two days. Unpleasant. It is back now, though I could have gone through tonight with the storms alright.

• 05:57 I'm bummed about my cow! :( #
• 09:36 Reading about "Juice Feasting" #
• 10:25 My head wants to hurt. I want it to not hurt. #
• 14:58 sleepy #

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Buncha misc. crap I've been meaning to post, but can never find the inspiration about which to write a whole entry.

- I have become strangely addicted to stringless sugar snap peas. I cannot stop eating them. So much so that practically every day on my way home from work I stop and buy some, and eat them all that same night.

- I've been having odd bouts of intense vertigo. Even the two steps down from my front porch can make me sway, and feel like I'm falling. I'm thinking some sort of inner ear problem. Perhaps also explains the sudden and severe bouts of nausea I've been experiencing soon after laying down at night, even causing vomiting on a couple of occasions. Although ... *see above*

- My neighbors hate me, I'm sure. I've only managed to paint half of the outside entry, and the other half remains scraped, and sanded, and abandoned looking. Not attractive. PLUS, the lawnmower is being annoying, and will start easily on the first pull, but stalls after only going one to two feet. So the yard also looks abandoned, and will likely stay that way til I can find someone to look at the mower.

- The air is finally fixed at work, after only two solid weeks of suffering.

- Had my annual review at work last week, and got not only almost the highest score (i guess you'd call it?) I could get, but also got the next to highest amongst my contemporaries. Only very nice things were said, and when we came to the part where I had to state goals for myself for the coming year, I had to partner with my boss cos I couldn't think of anything, and everything we eventually settled on involves developing my staff instead, so.. *go me* Even while the rest of my life falls to pieces, I can at least count on things going well at work. *knocks wood very, very hard*

- I find out how much my salary is increasing at a later date. *snorts and scoffs*

- I just discovered the movie Little Miss Sunshine and I LOVE it.

- The lilacs are blooming, and I am in heaven. Why can't they last all year? Or at least all summer?

- I think the ceiling is the only surface in this house that has not had cat puke on it. And that's probably only a matter of time. It's a good thing I love them.

- The Degus have been particulary restless the last few weeks (twitterpated?) and I've had to resort to entirely removing their wheel from the cage at night, or I wouldn't get any sleep at all! The remaining two are males, so at least all the ... um ... activity won't result in more little ones to keep me awake like in the past.

- Way back in early March I badly injured my left elbow whilst shoveling. Ever since I've been unable to make a fist, or to straighten or fully extend my arm. I constantly drop stuff cos I forget I can't grab it like I want to. Not to mention it hurts. All the time.
This has resulted in me making an effort to always carry something in my left hand, like Bob Dole does, because I feel selfconcious striding about with one arm bent in front of me (think I'm being silly? try it for a half hour sometime - I promise you'll feel like an idiot.) I have taken to periodically referring to myself in the frst person, like Bob Dole.
Everyone tells me (repeatedly) that I need to go to the Dr, but I have a HUGE trust issue with Drs right now, since they killed my father back in January, so it ain't gonna happen. Plus, everythng I can find online says the doctor will tell me to take pain pills, and minimize movement, and in about two years it will be better. This I can do on my own.
When taken in context with the very similar random injury to my left shoulder last year, I begin to wonder if there isn't something more going on. But that's just my sunny optimistic outlook taking over.

- The day after tomorrow!! Eeeee!

I am at the knarr with dave and todd from deals and we are listening to 'mr big stuff' while they play pool. Life is really weird sometimes.

On nights like this, it feels like nothing's changed.  My mom and I sit on the couch, watching Idol, while I (accurately) predict what the judges will say.  Jay watches TV upstairs.  Just like nothing's changed.  Except it has changed.  All of it.  The man upstairs is not the man who went upstairs to watch TV on February 12.  Did I ever tell you the details of it?  How it went down?

It was February 12.  A Tuesday.  The snow was coming down in sheets by 3pm; badly enough for me to text my friend to consider skipping class to come home.  Bad enough to have my doctor cancel an appointment.  Bad enough that the wait for the B100 was an hour, and within 10 feet we got stuck in the snow, causing me to have to walk to and wait an hour for another bus.  I got home and was cold and drenched and cranky, complaining all the while.  Jay came home feeling achy and sinus headache-y.  Shoveled a bit outside, then came in.  We ate a meal.  He and my mom fought about something dumb... curtains, I think.  He went upstairs; we stayed in the living room watching Tuesday night TV.   At around 10pm, he came down and sat on the stairs, kind of oddly.  We could tell his sugar was low, as it seldom was.  My mom asked him if he was ok; he didn't answer.  We chalked it up to them still being in a fight, and him still being angry.  Nothing seemed terribly out of the ordinary.  He went upstairs, and at around 11ish, I went downstairs and took an anti-anxiety, since I hadn't slept for days.  Just about an hour later, my mother woke me up to tell me that she called 911.  Jay was acting weird.  Thrashing around in bed.  Unresponsive.  Not speaking.  Acting funny.  I threw on the same white thermal top and brown Abercrombie sweats as I'd worn that day.  I didn't even think to put underwear on.  Came upstairs.  He was putting his glucometer in his mouth.  Spilled his can of coke all over the bed.  But insisted he was fine.  And then EMS asked him his name.  Something came out of his mouth, but good lord, it wasn't English.  I have become accustomed to gibberish by now.  Neo-logisms.  Words Jay uses to get a point across.  I understand a lot of it.  But that first time, my Gd, my blood froze cold in my veins.  Holy shit.

Took him to Beth Israel.  They were treating this as a hypoglycemic attack, though we knew something was terribly wrong.  My mom sat in the ER with him, while I sat trying to nap on our jackets in the waiting room.  The waiting room without so much as a vending machine.  I sat there from 12:30 until 6am.  The cab home cost more money because the roads were such a mess.  Home to email my boss and tell her I wasn't coming in; that I sat in the ER with my dad until 6am (to which she'd reply, "thanks for your note", and weeks later ask if I was feeling better).  I had a meeting that next day; showed up in wellies and leggings, and went straight to the hospital from there, coffee in hand.  He'd had these horrendous headaches, to the point of tears.  A CT was performed, and we were told, yes, he'd had an ischemic stroke.  It affected his frontal lobe, and this is the best type of stroke you can have - because of its location and because there was no bleeding.  Still have the disc that shows the lesions in his brain.  And his speech got better - so much better - and he was awake and alert and walking.  Until he had 3 or 4 grand mal seizures, and we knew that there was something we were missing.

We switched to NYU hospital.  He was in terrible shape.  All of his progress, gone.  Lying there, barely talking, barely awake.  With a high fever.  They conducted test after test until we got a diagnosis... encephalitis.  He was one of the 2 people out of a million a year who get this deadly virus of the central nervous system.  Beth Israel never followed stroke protocol; never gave him anti-seizure meds.  Never picked up on the terrible fever.  Who knows what we lost in the fire. 

Originally he responded to the medication, and was well enough to be transferred to Rusk - NYU's rehab.  We were enthusiastic and had high hopes and things seemed to be going in the right direction.  He smiled, one Friday.  One wonderful Friday after work.  Joked with his fabulous infectious disease doctor.  A day later his personality changed.  He was quiet and angry and brooding and holding his head again.  Something is wrong.  Please, someone, do an MRI, run a CT.  Don't just give him tylenol; something is wrong!  I looked down at my phone during my SIFMA conference,  6 missed calls.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck.  Stood in the hall, called someone - maybe my sister.  He bled into his brain.  There's been some pretty bad damage.  The encephalitis is back.  Probably for days.  They should have listened to us.  Hemorrhagic encephalitis.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck.  The encephalitis is back.  I somehow managed to finish the conference before getting myself back to NYU.  He was hooked up to so many new machines.  Electrodes all over his head connecting to an EEG machine with a camera facing him at all times.  Barely awake.  Not speaking.  We cried, gripped at each other's shoulders, sobbed and sighed and gasped for breath.  It's not fair.

I can't go into much more detail than that.  Actually, I can, but I won't.  Since NYU and Beth Israel there's also been Coney Island hospital.  Setbacks.  The encephalitis was never fully arrested.  The first medication didn't "work" (the doctor only saw 2 cases in 23 years where it didn't work... afraid to ask what happened to the other person).  The second medication almost shut down his kidneys.  Four or five lumbar punctures.  Gallium scan to test for lymphoma.  Tests for every type of autoimmune disease.  Test after test.  Needle after needle. 

He's home, but the disease has never been fully arrested.  Is 'functional' but will never be the same.  Global aphasia.  Bitemporal hemianopsia.  And of course, the diabetes.  Has major problems speaking.  Gets confused.  It's a very long road and we've only just started.  These past few months have brought out the best and worst of us.  It's been a learning process.  We learned about priorities.  About dropping everything for family.  About how fucked up life can really be.  That sickness doesn't care about age.  We celebrated Jay's birthday in the hospital.  Spent Valentine's Day in the hospital.  Passover in the hospital.  Jonathan turned 21 without his dad.  My mom had a birthday without her husband.  So much, so very much went wrong.  Neurologist admitted he should have run a CT when we new something was wrong - when he was bleeding into his brain.  It took too long to diagnose the encephalitis.  No stroke protocol.  No seizure prevention.  Will we sue?  Does it matter?  Will it bring him back - the way he was?  Will he ever be Jay again, brilliant - the way everyone describes him?

I've discovered a lot I don't like about myself.  Ice princess.  It isn't just a front I've put up after years of being afraid to get hurt.  I genuinely think something deep down inside of me is cold.  But I don't think it's irreversible.  I don't really cry in real life situations.  No, not often.  Strange things set me off.  TV shows, movies, songs - not even sad ones.  Strange triggers that chip away at the ice. 

I've criticized my mother for the things that she coudn't do with her man gone.  Little every day things, and big things, like pay the mortgage.  Chide her that she was so strong when she left my father, and then let herself become dependent on a man.  Vowed it would never be me.  But it's life.  And it can happen.  There are no 'nevers' in life, and maybe it doesn't matter what she went into this situation knowing, but what she accomplished.  What she became capable of.  How she stepped up.  I learned my own capabilities.  I knew it would be a rough semester when I took on an internship along with my job.  That I'd be stretched thin.  That was before going to the hospital every night when it first happened, and then 5 days a week.  That I can juggle this and still get great reviews from my job and internship, and do really well in my classes (well, from my grades so far).

I've learned that the 'ice' isn't all encompassing.  That I yearn for human affection.  That as much as I push people away, I need them.  There's this strange dichotomy going on, between how lonely I feel in my love life, and how my friends make me feel so loved that my heart feels like it just might burst.  They say that you learn the most about people in times of crisis, and I've been taught the most wonderful lesson.  My friends are some of the most considerate, warm, amazing, kind people, who have gone above and beyond anything I could have expected.  I've learned that some of the people I've dated possibly didn't even qualify to be my friend, never mind someone who was offered my heart.  Sometimes you really do need to hear the right things, to feel loved.  To feel wanted.  To have someone look at you like you're incredible.  This was made even more apparent to me in contrast to other situations in my life.  I need love, not some sentimental prison.  That I'm not good at casual.  That I claim to want nothing serious right now, in any capacity, because I have enough serious in my life.  To want to feel detached.  But when someone I liked told me that I was fine for a hook up but he didn't like me, well, no, I didn't think I could feel any worse.  A few days ago I told him that I didn't think I was really capable of the casual hook up - of being with a guy who didn't like me.  "You do that often?" he asked.  "No - most guys I'm with either like me, or pretend they do."  Because sometimes there's such a thing as too much honestly.  Don't be reckless with other people's hearts.  Be careful with people who are reckless with yours.  Even if they don't mean to be.   There is a world of difference between someone wanting to be with you because he thinks you're amazing, and someone wanting to be with you because you're there. 

I've learned that I'm a terribly impatient person.  I demand perfection from myself and others and have no patience for incompetence.  This is a horrible trait that will leave me terribly disappointed in life (not to mention, it's pretty obnoxious).  I've learned that faith is something that is easy to have when times are good, but real faith comes out when you don't understand why something terrible is happening.  I need Gd, not the political church.

It's 11pm.  I'm blogging on the couch.  It feels like a normal Tuesday night.  Nothing will ever be the same, but maybe, very very slowly, I will get a little more patient, the ice will melt a little bit, and we will all crawl ourselves back towards normal.  I need fire to melt this frozen sea inside me.

House last night? KILLED ME DED. AHHHH HUDDY AHHHH

So yes. Team Patti 2008. I do believe I'll make some icons. Tshirts sound amazing - to wear during the Tonys, eee!
Also, Patti reacts to the nomination. CLASSIC. PATTI. EXCELLENT. "Now, my friend and I have to sort out clothes! [Laughs]. 'OK, you'll be wearing that to the Outer Critics, you'll be wearing that to the Tony nominations brunch…' It's just a nightmare of fashion!" ILU.

Pictures of some FIERCE LADIES under the cut!
( Read more... )

Okay so. Grades!
3.833 GPA for the semester
A in Thesis Sem, Advanced Fiction, and Musical Theatre
B+ in Scenic Design
HOORAY!

So part of me really liked the new car with the satellite radio, and part of me really wants in to the high stakes & high drama of being a fashion designer, and the rest of me

Video game stuuuuufffff!

For whatever reason, today I went on a lark buying DS games. I forget which was the 2nd game I bought, because I'm too damn excited about buying my first Harvest Moon game ever!

I hope it doesn't suck. Plz to be helping me with my choice-supportive cognitive bias? kthx

I also searched for and downloaded a ton of Castlevania soundtrack music today, especially stuff from my favorite, Circle of the Moon. I need the Castlevania DS games, btw, if anyone wants to sell me theirs before I go driving to a retarded number of GameStops.

Also, I decided I'm officially waiting to buy Wii DDR until we move to our new house (omg design center appointment tomorrow!@#!@#!@) and have a 2nd living room.

And finally, here is a guy beating every boss in Castlevania Circle of the Moon in 22 minutes. Pretty entertaining if you've wasted hours of your life on the game. heh.


ahhh platformer love. lulz @ all the level-ups.
aaaand that is all the attention I'll probably have time to give video games other than Animal Crossing for a while.

My friend Che tells me that I'm living the american dream now that I've bought a house.
I reminded him that he has a house of his own.
That he complains about all the work he has to do on it.

He packed up what he could carry,
Leased out his house
Handed his dogs to his mom
Quit his job
And is currently in England with plans to spend at least the next 6 months traveling Europe.

When I asked why he was going he said to get away, to find his roots, to find himself, to find another job and possibly to find a wife.

He emailed me from the Dallas airport
where he had a layover.
He misses his "doggies".
He sent me this picture from his last day at work:
( Goodbye Che )

How strange is it that he didn't live near me and yet...
I miss him.

THE LETTERS -- Rogi Wieg

What goes beyond understanding, goes over one’s hat,
a light, woolly cloud of information and so forth.
I have the status of an expensive, strange,
magnificent rose, smelling of shit. Should

I therefore go on with creating? To do nothing
is not a future, collecting sunshine, chasing the dresses off women
and slowly growing older, narrower as the shinbone
of a dead toadstool. I must carry the letters.

Everything I have ever, or never, made is a box for blocks
with crooked blocks. It goes over my hats
why I, creator of flowers, hand over to you

a rotten rose. Oh beautiful, pleasant life,
I’ve produced refined, nuanced horror.
What goes beneath my understanding is what I’ve written.

( De Letters-- in original Dutch )

any of you who were involved in "the drama" or anyone who is just wildly curious should check here

 http://mauigirl111.livejournal.com/16160.html?mode=reply

so true and so hilarious


now, I really am done...she asked me to share this so I did, hopefully he'll leave well enough alone now. 

Proof that what goes around come around...

My wedding day make-up will be done for free as a thank from the make-up artist herself. I've begun proofing, editing, and re-formatting her marketing materials and she's been so thrilled with the results that she's insisted that my make-up be on her. She was already willing to do it for half her normal price and a waiver of the booking fee, but this is even more generous of her. I'm thrilled! And delighted that I appear to have made a new friend out of all of this.

Work today went by swiftly, thank goodness, and due in part to the company of Work Wifey, who now has an LJ. Ahhh, another one brought into the fold!

I picked Mia up and we got home at 5:30, at which time I hit the ground running. I immediately vacuumed the living and dining rooms, unloaded the dishwasher, made up bottles for tonight and the morning, and then fed Mia her dinner. While she was still trapped in her high chair, I reloaded the dishwasher and swept up the kitchen floor.

I took her upstairs with me and emptied the trash in each room and the rabbit's litter box, got stuff out and ready for Mia's bedtime, and then took her back downstairs to empty the kitchen trash. We went downstairs and I folded up laundry, switched towels into the dryer to finish up the last of what was down there, and scooped the cat boxes. The floor desperately needs to be swept, but I just couldn't do that down there with Mia running around - it's hardly baby friendly.

Came upstairs and settled down to play and read a few books. Ed was stuck in horrific traffic courtesy of a bad accident on I-95, so when Mia started getting sleepy, I took her upstairs for bath and bedtime. We read three books, sat together for five minutes, I put her down and left. She wailed for a moment, but that's all, and almost immediately quieted down. Ed didn't make it home until about 9 and in the process of wrestling 9 tonnes of trash out the front door, woke Mia up. I soothed her and got her to sleep and we've not heard a peep since. Good thoughts for the 12-3 hours, please?

We're watching Hell's Kitchen and Internetting right now. I need to go up and take a shower soon and try to get to bed. I have an important meeting tomorrow afternoon and I need to be well-rested and together for it. I hope Mia cooperates.

Thankfully, tomorrow night's Girls' Night. admiringbog and I are talking about dinner and drinks somewhere local and interesting. Michelle was going to give it some thought since she's more familiar with the local places than I am. We're both looking forward to it!

I just saw...

I say "saw". I should say... well, here's what went through my head almost verbatim.

Grocery store on the way home from work, picking up lamb chops, panty liners, ant baits, bagel bites for my daughter and perch filets. I'm tired, I want to go home to my daughter, oh look there's a short line, I'll just stand here behind this dumpy woman but not too close because I'm queasy and she looks like she might not be too clean and smells bother me a lot, unload my basket and read the tabloid headlines. Ooh, Mischa Barton has THAT much cellulite? I feel better, compared to these pics I may not be skinny but damn my ass is better. Oh, moving up... *uneasy twinge* Woman in front of me is asking for cigarettes and being a bit of a snot about it, it's Marbies they're all the same jeez I should know, why is she looking at me out of the corner of her eye and I wonder whose money she's paying for those with what a strange thing to think. Paste a pleasant neutral smile on my face and put the lamb chops on the belt yes I think he would like those wow, again that was an odd thing to think. She's smirking, why is that, maybe vaguely familiar but that type all blends together for me so they all look like people I knew in high school. She's looking at my things on the belt and lingering, just go already you have your bananas and cancer sticks and for chrissakes smoke something that tastes decent why don't you sheesh. My nerves are up so I modulate my voice to be radio-pleasant when I greet the cashier, pay and go. Out to the parking lot, scan cars to make sure I won't get hit hey silver car on but not backing out despite clear path wonder why? WAIT... there go the mental alarms. Get into my car, see silver car start backing out when I'm getting into mine oh good gods I know that license plate dammit I lost a chance to be evil. DAMMIT she knows what I drive now and that I'm a gimp. Oh well, I have the pleasure of knowing that her meal ticket has a key to my apartment wish I could safely call to warn him but his kid might answer the phone instead. Wonder how long it'll be until my tires get slashed now that she knows what to look for around the community center?

Yes, that's about how my thoughts run. I'm a very snarky person inside. (And Marlboro Milds taste like shit. Winston Lights or one of the Camel variants are much better, and personally I think Luckies taste best but they tend to be unfiltered.)

To be little bitty!

well, I just ordered 2 more bras.

A white one (BORING) which as I said earlier I desperately need.  Then I bought a really pretty bright red one to make up for the boringness of the one I need.  Yippee!   It also helped that they were buy one get one half off.  LOL

Every girl needs fun underthings  :)


Oh yeah, and while we're on the subject of online shopping.  I ordered my mom's mother's day present from amazon.  It was the only place I could find this cd that she wanted.  I finally got it in the mail today.  I ordered it in plenty of time to get it here for mothers day but Amazon let me down.  It's ok, though I still love them I guess.  LOL, my mom loved her gift so that makes it easier for me to forgive them for making me give it to her late.  :)

Found this via oed_1

Things Younger than John McCain

Things like... Alaska (as a state) or the Polio Vaccine.

o.O

Holycrap, the man is my GRANDMOTHER'S age!