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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Because they just can't stop messing with it
Twitter has done it again! Now the search is in the sidebar instead of up top, and trending topics are listed beneath it.
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Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Too bright
I had just finished opening all the blinds in the living room and kitchen when Sean got up.
"Hiss," he said. "It's too bright in here."
"Hi!" I replied, glomping him. We hugged and he settled down in his gamer chair. "There's food for you in the microwave."
"It's too bright in here," he responded.
I started laughing, and bent down and wrapped my arms around him. "I love you and your silly ways."
"...it's too bright in here."
I gave in. "Since that seems to be the only thing you can say, I'll close this one," I said, reaching up and twisting the cord on the blinds next to his table.
"That's much better," Sean sighed, relief flooding his I-just-woke-up voice.
Poor baby ;)
"Hiss," he said. "It's too bright in here."
"Hi!" I replied, glomping him. We hugged and he settled down in his gamer chair. "There's food for you in the microwave."
"It's too bright in here," he responded.
I started laughing, and bent down and wrapped my arms around him. "I love you and your silly ways."
"...it's too bright in here."
I gave in. "Since that seems to be the only thing you can say, I'll close this one," I said, reaching up and twisting the cord on the blinds next to his table.
"That's much better," Sean sighed, relief flooding his I-just-woke-up voice.
Poor baby ;)
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Negative, of course
Today, it's over a week since the day my period would have started, if I were on a normal cycle. I wouldn't even know this, but it happened that I had two cycles recently, exactly 30 days apart. That hasn't happened to me without the application of hormone therapy since before I had cancer.
It didn't take much for me to begin to hope that my reproductive cycle had recovered somehow. So I waited to see if I would have period #3. And waited, and waited. If a week goes by, I told myself, I'll take a pregnancy test.
This morning I took two. Just in case.
They both rather quickly came back with the "Not Pregnant" message.
As you might imagine, I had been hoping for more than a regular cycle. I hoped that the missed period not only meant I was normal again, but that I was fertile.
I seem unable to keep from hoping.
It is a good sign that I had two periods in a row. Maybe I will have another one at some point. Maybe if I can get back into my healthy habits and lose some more weight, I'll be able to have them regularly again.
That won't mean I'm fertile, though. After all, I did undergo hormone therapy. That should have helped me get pregnant, if it were possible. It didn't happen, and that is likely my answer. Even if my ovaries do recover, it's likely that none of my eggs are viable.
I've known all of this for years, though, and it doesn't matter. I'll probably keep on hoping until I'm 50.
It didn't take much for me to begin to hope that my reproductive cycle had recovered somehow. So I waited to see if I would have period #3. And waited, and waited. If a week goes by, I told myself, I'll take a pregnancy test.
This morning I took two. Just in case.
They both rather quickly came back with the "Not Pregnant" message.
As you might imagine, I had been hoping for more than a regular cycle. I hoped that the missed period not only meant I was normal again, but that I was fertile.
I seem unable to keep from hoping.
It is a good sign that I had two periods in a row. Maybe I will have another one at some point. Maybe if I can get back into my healthy habits and lose some more weight, I'll be able to have them regularly again.
That won't mean I'm fertile, though. After all, I did undergo hormone therapy. That should have helped me get pregnant, if it were possible. It didn't happen, and that is likely my answer. Even if my ovaries do recover, it's likely that none of my eggs are viable.
I've known all of this for years, though, and it doesn't matter. I'll probably keep on hoping until I'm 50.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Pain
My mother-in-law had a back injury when she was in her late teens/early 20s that has caused problems for her ever since. Things have gotten progressively worse for her over the years. She has had multiple neck and back surgeries. As it stands now, she is in so much pain that she can't sleep. There is no comfortable position. She can barely go anywhere. Just getting ready to leave exhausts her. Her hands continually shake.
She underwent physical therapy for months, including traction, massage, the application of heat and cold, and electrostimulation. She says these things weren't much help at all. What does help are shots administered by a pain specialist, but either they are done inaccurately (without the use of X-ray) or accurately with the risk of blood clots. And the shots are very expensive. In her condition she can't work.
Her doctors refuse to prescribe pain medicine any stronger than Tylenol, for fear of addiction.
She saw her neurologist this week and got the strong impression that there's nothing more that can be done for her.
This is wrong. No one should have to live like this.
I don't know what to do or how to help.
She underwent physical therapy for months, including traction, massage, the application of heat and cold, and electrostimulation. She says these things weren't much help at all. What does help are shots administered by a pain specialist, but either they are done inaccurately (without the use of X-ray) or accurately with the risk of blood clots. And the shots are very expensive. In her condition she can't work.
Her doctors refuse to prescribe pain medicine any stronger than Tylenol, for fear of addiction.
She saw her neurologist this week and got the strong impression that there's nothing more that can be done for her.
This is wrong. No one should have to live like this.
I don't know what to do or how to help.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Insert 'a'
Me (10:21:39 PM): hi
Hai (10:21:46 PM): hether
Me (10:22:04 PM): lol
Me (10:22:12 PM): it took me a minute to realize what you did there
Hai (10:21:46 PM): hether
Me (10:22:04 PM): lol
Me (10:22:12 PM): it took me a minute to realize what you did there
I hate this
I've fallen out of all my good habits. It only took a couple of weeks to destroy several months' work. I'm not exercising much at all and I'm eating crap. I feel like I'm stuck in a cycle of unhealthiness and depression. Whenever I try to start fresh, whether using Weight Watchers or something else, I find myself slipping up almost immediately.
I hate this.
I hate this.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Ben Franklin's perversion
This is a dream I had just before waking up this morning, but I thought I'd write it as a narrative and give the characters names.
Cherry was mumbling something as we stepped into the room. She always seemed to say something when we did a time slip. I never could make it out. The first part sounded like random letters and numbers. The last part was definitely a phrase. It sounded like the last word was "day".
I could ask her about it later. The most important thing was the box.
The room was a comfortable study. Brass chair rail ringed the richly stained wood walls, ending at an expansive stone fireplace. On the right of the entryway was a cluster of small plants done up in red bows and Christmas lights. I made for the rolltop desk just beyond that. The object I was after sat innocently atop a mess of papers, as if it were being used as an oversized paperweight. I picked up the box gingerly and sat down on the floor near the fireplace to examine it.
It was about the size of a cigar box, but it was heavy and made of cherry wood and brass. The box was plain, unmarked save for some small brass tacking. I flipped open the lid and let it fall back and hang on the thin chains that secured it.
Cherry had been surveying the room, but now came to crouch beside me and peer over my shoulder.
"Tools and surgical implements," I pointed out, running my forefinger along the row of silver screwdrivers and scalpels. "But what are they for?"
"Seems weird to have them together like that," Cherry agreed. After a moment of staring into the velvet-lined case, she straightened and stepped further into Franklin's office. "Maybe there's something else here we can learn from."
As she started rummaging through a bookshelf, I decided to disassemble the carefully-arranged box to see if that would help. I'd started gathering up the tools when I noticed the odd way the velvet gathered at the edges of the box. "Hmm," I said aloud, cocking my head to one side and frowning. "I wonder..."
I picked up one of the flathead screwdriver tips and wedged it between the velvet and the box. A little leverage, and the fabric started to rise. It was apparently tacked to cardboard. "Look, this is a tray," I said excitedly. "It lifts out."
I felt Cherry step back in my direction, but I was intent on the box as I pulled the tray of tools up and out and set it aside.
"Whoa."
Jackpot.
"Here's a bag of transistors," I said. "There's some wiring. But what's this?"
I picked something out of the box that was about the size of a coin, with a yellow, rusty looking wedge jutting from a silver root. "A root?" I asked aloud. "This is..."
"A tooth," Cherry breathed.
We both knew the implications of what we'd found. But there was no time to discuss them. Our window was closing.
I quickly reassembled the box and set it back on the desk. Moments later, we felt time slip away...
I blinked and looked around. We had time-slipped, hadn't we? But we were back in the study.
Cherry looked at me curiously. "Why are we back here?"
"I don't know," I was saying, when suddenly we arrived. Or rather, the us who had been there before. We were standing by the fireplace; Us' abruptly appeared in the doorway.
"Roman!" Cherry hissed, grabbing my arm.
"Why are we here again?" I whispered frantically.
Me' came striding in, intent on the box. I gaped at him for a moment as he turned his back to us, giving me a rare view of the back of my own head. I considered idly that my auburn hair was getting a little shaggy, and boy was it ever curly in the back.
"Everything's the same," Me' informed Cherry', glancing around at her. "...wait. Where's the wallscreen?"
In my shock at reappearing where we'd just left I hadn't noticed. I glanced over my shoulder. "He's right," I told Cherry. When we'd first arrived there had been a flat panel screen above the fireplace. "It's gone."
Turning back towards our dopplegangers, I saw that Cherry' was looking at the Christmas decorations. I abruptly noticed they were different as well. This time there were no bows, and the plants were much smaller.
"What's going on?" both Cherrys said at once.
"Oh, wait, I forgot to say my stuff," Cherry' cried, and then she was rattling off a long list of nonsensical letters and numbers. I was hearing the code, the thing she was always muttering, clearly for the first time. Not that it made any sense. "And let the other guys be gay," she finished.
I blinked. "What the heck does that mean?"
"Oh," Cherry' said, "that's just so I don't fall in love with anyone while I'm traveling and neglect to do my duty."
I wheeled on Cherry, who had turned bright pink. "They shouldn't be able to see us, should they?"
"Why wouldn't we be able to see you?" asked Me' calmly, lifting the tray of tools from the box and examining the cyborg oddments beneath.
"Because," I spluttered, "Paradox Theory..."
They weren't us.
They looked like us. They were even wearing the same clothes. Cherry' had on that dress Cherry loves, the one that comes to just above the knee, with the marbled red and black pattern. And she was wearing Cherry's trademark knee-high leather boots, with the platforms and five-inch heels. And Me' was in the same suit I was wearing, tuxedo-style but dark purple, with copper buttons and a pocket watch chain visible upon one breast.
I had assumed because they looked like us, they sounded like us, and they were here just as we had been, that they were us. But...
"That's ridiculous," Me' responded. "Paradox Theory doesn't have anything to do with dimensional slips."
Cherry was mumbling something as we stepped into the room. She always seemed to say something when we did a time slip. I never could make it out. The first part sounded like random letters and numbers. The last part was definitely a phrase. It sounded like the last word was "day".
I could ask her about it later. The most important thing was the box.
The room was a comfortable study. Brass chair rail ringed the richly stained wood walls, ending at an expansive stone fireplace. On the right of the entryway was a cluster of small plants done up in red bows and Christmas lights. I made for the rolltop desk just beyond that. The object I was after sat innocently atop a mess of papers, as if it were being used as an oversized paperweight. I picked up the box gingerly and sat down on the floor near the fireplace to examine it.
It was about the size of a cigar box, but it was heavy and made of cherry wood and brass. The box was plain, unmarked save for some small brass tacking. I flipped open the lid and let it fall back and hang on the thin chains that secured it.
Cherry had been surveying the room, but now came to crouch beside me and peer over my shoulder.
"Tools and surgical implements," I pointed out, running my forefinger along the row of silver screwdrivers and scalpels. "But what are they for?"
"Seems weird to have them together like that," Cherry agreed. After a moment of staring into the velvet-lined case, she straightened and stepped further into Franklin's office. "Maybe there's something else here we can learn from."
As she started rummaging through a bookshelf, I decided to disassemble the carefully-arranged box to see if that would help. I'd started gathering up the tools when I noticed the odd way the velvet gathered at the edges of the box. "Hmm," I said aloud, cocking my head to one side and frowning. "I wonder..."
I picked up one of the flathead screwdriver tips and wedged it between the velvet and the box. A little leverage, and the fabric started to rise. It was apparently tacked to cardboard. "Look, this is a tray," I said excitedly. "It lifts out."
I felt Cherry step back in my direction, but I was intent on the box as I pulled the tray of tools up and out and set it aside.
"Whoa."
Jackpot.
"Here's a bag of transistors," I said. "There's some wiring. But what's this?"
I picked something out of the box that was about the size of a coin, with a yellow, rusty looking wedge jutting from a silver root. "A root?" I asked aloud. "This is..."
"A tooth," Cherry breathed.
We both knew the implications of what we'd found. But there was no time to discuss them. Our window was closing.
I quickly reassembled the box and set it back on the desk. Moments later, we felt time slip away...
I blinked and looked around. We had time-slipped, hadn't we? But we were back in the study.
Cherry looked at me curiously. "Why are we back here?"
"I don't know," I was saying, when suddenly we arrived. Or rather, the us who had been there before. We were standing by the fireplace; Us' abruptly appeared in the doorway.
"Roman!" Cherry hissed, grabbing my arm.
"Why are we here again?" I whispered frantically.
Me' came striding in, intent on the box. I gaped at him for a moment as he turned his back to us, giving me a rare view of the back of my own head. I considered idly that my auburn hair was getting a little shaggy, and boy was it ever curly in the back.
"Everything's the same," Me' informed Cherry', glancing around at her. "...wait. Where's the wallscreen?"
In my shock at reappearing where we'd just left I hadn't noticed. I glanced over my shoulder. "He's right," I told Cherry. When we'd first arrived there had been a flat panel screen above the fireplace. "It's gone."
Turning back towards our dopplegangers, I saw that Cherry' was looking at the Christmas decorations. I abruptly noticed they were different as well. This time there were no bows, and the plants were much smaller.
"What's going on?" both Cherrys said at once.
"Oh, wait, I forgot to say my stuff," Cherry' cried, and then she was rattling off a long list of nonsensical letters and numbers. I was hearing the code, the thing she was always muttering, clearly for the first time. Not that it made any sense. "And let the other guys be gay," she finished.
I blinked. "What the heck does that mean?"
"Oh," Cherry' said, "that's just so I don't fall in love with anyone while I'm traveling and neglect to do my duty."
I wheeled on Cherry, who had turned bright pink. "They shouldn't be able to see us, should they?"
"Why wouldn't we be able to see you?" asked Me' calmly, lifting the tray of tools from the box and examining the cyborg oddments beneath.
"Because," I spluttered, "Paradox Theory..."
They weren't us.
They looked like us. They were even wearing the same clothes. Cherry' had on that dress Cherry loves, the one that comes to just above the knee, with the marbled red and black pattern. And she was wearing Cherry's trademark knee-high leather boots, with the platforms and five-inch heels. And Me' was in the same suit I was wearing, tuxedo-style but dark purple, with copper buttons and a pocket watch chain visible upon one breast.
I had assumed because they looked like us, they sounded like us, and they were here just as we had been, that they were us. But...
"That's ridiculous," Me' responded. "Paradox Theory doesn't have anything to do with dimensional slips."
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Grouchy
I've found myself getting annoyed or upset by things that shouldn't matter today, or at least which don't warrant such a strong response. For example, this morning I passed a house where I've seen a cute little old man doing yard work or getting the mail before. He wasn't around and the house was in the process of getting new siding. I thought, "What if the man died, and his family is fixing up his house to sell it?" And the thought made me so sad that tears came to my eyes.
Then today at lunch, I tried the new cafe in Hammond's Ferry. I had really been looking forward to it. When I got there, it was busy, so I couldn't sit outside in the nice weather. Inside, after I was seated, all the waitresses ignored me--I don't know if they thought I was waiting on someone else or what. The hostess tried to help me but was too distracted to do a good job. She offered me bread and never brought it, and didn't ask if I'd like dessert before bringing the check. I'd wanted to try something of theirs, but I was so irritated by the experience that I paid and left instead. Normally I would have just said, "Actually, I was hoping to get some dessert, too."
So I grouchily drove away, still wanting dessert. It struck me that I still hadn't tried Sno Cap Drive-In, so I went there. After sitting in a parking spot for awhile, I finally noticed the sign on the menu that says, "sorry the system is out of order. You may place your order inside and we will bring it to you." Great, I thought, a drive-in that isn't even really a drive-in. What a fabulous day I'm having.
These are not things to get upset over, but I can't seem to help it.
The hot fudge cake sundae is helping, though.
As you might guess, I am wondering if I'm hormonal, if I'm going to have another period. Tomorrow it will be exactly 30 days since the last one started. Am I going to keep having regular periods? That's what I'm hoping.
But if that hope is causing some sort of psychosomatic PMS, then BLAH.
Then today at lunch, I tried the new cafe in Hammond's Ferry. I had really been looking forward to it. When I got there, it was busy, so I couldn't sit outside in the nice weather. Inside, after I was seated, all the waitresses ignored me--I don't know if they thought I was waiting on someone else or what. The hostess tried to help me but was too distracted to do a good job. She offered me bread and never brought it, and didn't ask if I'd like dessert before bringing the check. I'd wanted to try something of theirs, but I was so irritated by the experience that I paid and left instead. Normally I would have just said, "Actually, I was hoping to get some dessert, too."
So I grouchily drove away, still wanting dessert. It struck me that I still hadn't tried Sno Cap Drive-In, so I went there. After sitting in a parking spot for awhile, I finally noticed the sign on the menu that says, "sorry the system is out of order. You may place your order inside and we will bring it to you." Great, I thought, a drive-in that isn't even really a drive-in. What a fabulous day I'm having.
These are not things to get upset over, but I can't seem to help it.
The hot fudge cake sundae is helping, though.
As you might guess, I am wondering if I'm hormonal, if I'm going to have another period. Tomorrow it will be exactly 30 days since the last one started. Am I going to keep having regular periods? That's what I'm hoping.
But if that hope is causing some sort of psychosomatic PMS, then BLAH.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Lunch
If I'd finished building the bistro set I could be eating outside! Oh well, at least the door's open.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Twitter search on homepage
It would appear that many of my Twitter followers do not see the Twitter search box in the top right-hand corner of their home pages. Thus, they do not believe that I do.
Well, nay-sayers, here's what I see! (Click the image to see the whole page.)
As you can see, the Profile and Settings links have been moved down next to my username, making room for the search box.
I've already used search more thanks to this change!
Well, nay-sayers, here's what I see! (Click the image to see the whole page.)
As you can see, the Profile and Settings links have been moved down next to my username, making room for the search box.
I've already used search more thanks to this change!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
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