Year: 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh wait, that was, like, a week ago. Lets start over.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I really hope that everybody had a FANTASTIC Christmas. Our was awesome. Five days of sitting on our asses being as lazy as humanly possible. One morning I ate chocolate ice cream for breakfast AND dinner. Not having a child around you have to set an example for is SO TOTALLY AWESOME.

We are having a few friends over but I wanted to take a few seconds to get a blog post out there before 2008 comes to an end forever. I’ve spent some time today in google reader reading all your wonderful 2008 recaps. Some are doing memes and some are listing important things that happened month by month but I kinda hate memes passionately and I’m blond so you can’t reasonably expect me to remember what I did last January. For serious.

So I’ll just leave you by saying that 2008 was one of the most awesome so far. I got married to my soul mate and we bought a house. Two things I’ve been dreaming about for years and years. And two things that totally made me not feel bad at all about not being able to buy Christmas gifts for each other because we are BROKE. Every day at least once I look down at my ring finger and get that little rush of adrenaline knowing that he’s MINE. FOREVER. And every day we come home from a long day at work and an even longer commute home and we pull up to our house and I think, “We are home. This is OUR HOUSE! We have a house!”

Everybody be safe tonight. Surround yourself with good friends and the ones you love the most and make sure you get a kiss at midnight. I’ll raise my glass of champagne to all my online friends. I love you all. Happy New Year!

At dinner tonight Cassidy asked about the relationship between cat and human years. I didn’t really know but I assumed that the general 7 years used for dog life would be close so Cassidy determined that KC was 70 years old. Her jaw dropped and she exclaimed that, “OMG KC IS REALLY OLD!” So I told her, “YEAH! Remember that next time you feel like chasing her around the house like a lunatic!” Then I told her that we’re really lucky that KC is still alive and with us because 10 is actually getting up there for a cat.

The conversation eventually turned to death and how it would feel to not have her around anymore which turned to:

Cassidy: I’d probably cry.
Me: I’d probably lose it, like, mentally. Seriously.
Ben: So it would be like… a Tuesday.
Me: I hate you.
Ben: *grin*
Me: And I’m totally blogging that later.

The ability to laugh at Ben making fun of my mental state is the best part of having a “normal” mental state.

And for the record, after doing some research I realized that KC is actually only 56 years old. Assuming she doesn’t get any fatter, or lazier, or bitchier, I think she still has a few good years in her. 😉

OKAY!

My dad has pointed out three times now, once in a comment and once in a voicemail and then again later on the phone, that I haven’t been updating ‘that blog of mine’ for a long time so HERE I AM! YAY! You can send thanks to my dad. He likes steak, sailing the high sea and having his finger pulled.

That last post was written at the tail end of a really bad downward mental swing. Sometimes I get tired of the “numb” feeling I get while on Lexapro. It’s hard to explain what I mean other than I don’t feel like I’m FEELING things as strongly as I should. It’s good not to be upset at small things and to be able to rationally think through decisions beforehand but there are times when I feel like I should be… experiencing more feeling than I am about something. So I rationalize with myself that stopping the Lexapro will somehow help.

And I’m always wrong.

Stopping the medicine NEVER helps. For the first week I’m great. Steady and calm. Then I get this manic time. Time when I’m still feeling UP but then I can REALLY feel the up. I get this ridiculous burst of energy and spend hours organizing my makeup by brand and color. Then the cans in the pantry by type of food and alphabetically. Then clean, fold, hang up, reorganize, and color order every single article of clothing I own.

This manic time, unfortunately, is always followed by a swing in the other direction. Usually it brings me back to my “normally depressed” self but this time was it… bad. It lead to me being at work and spending the entire 8.5 hours about 20 seconds away from a complete panic attack. Heart racing, palms sweating, nauseated, dizzy, OMG WTF IS WRONG WITH ME I’M SERIOUSLY ABOUT TO LOSE IT panic attack.

I realized how bad it was when on the way home Ban asked me if I was okay and I said I was fine and he responded, “Are you sure? You don’t look okay. You look like you’re… not there. Your eyes are glassy like you are drugged or something.” And then that brought the panic attack within 5 seconds of happening because OMG MY HUSBAND THINKS I’M ON DRUGS! SHIT!

That evening after I’d had the chance to lay down for a bit and calm my mind and stop the racing of the thoughts that never end and keep on going, he asked me again if I was okay and I told him, “Yes, but I need you to do something for me. I need you to make sure I’m taking my medicine every day. Like, don’t ask me if I’ve taken it, but actually watch me put the pill in my mouth and swallow it.” And then everything just kinda poured out of my mouth and Ben was his always supportive, but stern, self. He is understanding of my depression but he is able to give me just enough kick in the ass to STOP DOING THAT SHIT. I can’t even describe to you how much I hate having to ask him to do that, to check up on me like a little kid, but I’m smart enough and experienced enough with how my depression works to know that I can’t trust myself to remember how this felt in six months and stop taking it again.

When I said in the last blog that a look from Ben cold cause me to “fall to the floor and cry for three hours straight”, that’s what I meant. Because any little emotion I felt SO STRONGLY it practically dropped me to my knees. I even suffered from a bit of agoraphobia because I would get so over stimulated at the grocery store or restaurant that I literally clung to Ben to keep from falling over.

So anyway, that’s why I kinda disappeared about a month ago. For a few weeks I wasn’t posting on forums, hardly twittering, not really blogging, etc. But I’m medicated now! And as clinically sane as I can ever be! And that’s where I was. Well, for the last two or so weeks I’ve just been too lazy to post but still.

So, HOW HAVE ALL OF YOU BEEN!?

Ben informed me tonight of his dislike for the word ‘swoon’. When I asked him to explain he said it’s because other than the fact that the word just sucks, I am not a “swooner”, I don’t swoon.

What?! I SWOON! I think I’m just different than most girls and I don’t like to ANNOUNCE the fact that I’ve just turned into a bucket of emotional goo because I’ve taken great care for a long time not to let people see me weak or emotional. I’ve never wanted to be one of “those” girls.

Example:
The other night when I was right in the middle of reading New Moon Ben wanted to go to dinner. I would have gladly skipped dinner to sit and read and pine and hope that Edward would FINALLY make his way back to Bella so I could stop wanting to hate her for leading Jacob on and, SERIOUSLY, FOOD!? I was being difficult, no doubt. I wanted Mexican, he wanted the Irish Pub and finally I agreed and said FINE, LETS JUST GO THE DAMN PUB SO I CAN GET HOME AND CONTINUE BEING AN EMO VAMPIRE WORSHIPER. He asked me if I was sure the pub was okay and I yelled back calmly answered I’LL GO WHEREVER YOU WANT!

When we turned into the parking lot where the Mexican place was I asked him, “What are you doing?” And he just responded, “Going where I want to eat.”

*swoon*

He really didn’t want to go eat there but he did. And the only reason he did it was to make me happy. The car was dark and I looked the other way when the blood hit my cheeks, but trust me, it happened.

Another Example:
This is the conversation that happened tonight. To say I’ve had a few rough days would be a drastic understatement and I can’t tell you how supportive and wonderful Ben has been to me. I’ll explain all this later when I’m not feeling so ‘raw’ but he’s kept my head just above the water and I’ve never loved him more than I do right now.

And I might have taken a bit of advantage of his unwavering support when I asked him this question…

Me: So, will you go see Twilight with me this weekend?
Ben: Sure!
Me: *blink* *blink* What?
Ben: Yes.
Me: …seriously?!
Ben: Yeah.
Me: *stunned*
(a bit more unrelated conversation about Bon-Bons)
Me: So you’ll really go see it with me?
Ben: Yeah, I think could be good, I watched the trailer*.
Me: Did you swoon?
Ben: NO. And I hate that word, every time I hear it I want to throw up.

*I don’t actually believe that he thinks it’s “good”. Or even “not bad” which I think might have been the words he actually used. Either way, Twilight is NOT the kind of movie that he would choose to go to. As a matter of fact, I know, without a doubt, that Ben’s really wanting to see Quantum of Solace.

Ben, you’re choosing to partake in my idiotic 13 year old vampire on mortal love obsession because… I don’t know, I really need you right now? You love me? You know that it just means a lot to me to make a ‘sacrifice’? Because you are scared to let me loose on the general public right now? For whatever reason, I know that it’s not because you are excited to see this movie IN THE LEAST.

And I swooned.

I just turned around and stirred the food on the stove so my back would be to you when I blushed. As much as I love it when you tease me when that happens, when you see my cheeks turn red and you smile and point out to me that it’s not just cold green acid flowing through my veins, I was scared that the sudden adrenaline flow that usually follows would probably be crippling enough for me to fall to the floor and cry for three hours straight.

I do swoon and to prove it to you I’m going to make it a point to be more like those silly girls and when I swoon I’ll find a way to gracefully flaunt it in your face.

I love you.

I know I said it would be the end of the political blog posts for awhile but I think this is somebody every single person in the country should have to watch. If you support gay marriage, if you aren’t sure how you feel about it, and especially if you don’t, you need to watch this.

I know that I’ve completely failed the whole NaBloPoMo thing and I will touch on it in another post soon. Until then, watch the video, email it to a friend, post it on your own blog, spread the word because it’s important.

OH HEY! LOOK AT THAT! There was no post make yesterday. OOPS!

Actually, I totally sat down to post at one point but accidentally ended up playing WOW for 20 minutes then decided to “lay down to watch the rest of CSI” and then suddenly it was 2:00AM and Ben was waking me up to get into bed. At that point it was already today so I figured I’d just shoot this off first thing in the morning.

TECHNICALLY I failed but I choose to say that yesterday was called on account of stress and sleep. So, it was really just a minor delay. *nods to self* I’ll get back on track with a post this evening! Until then I leave you with the best news since… Well, since Tuesday night!

GAS DROPPED OVER $.25 IN THREE DAYS! I think this is the firt time in over a year we’ve paid under $3.00 for gas. A few months ago it was knocking on $5.00’s door.

PS – I wanted to point out that Caitlin did a Me Today and I TOTALLY SLACKED! DAMN THE SLEEP! Anyway, go give her some love for being so badass!

I’m glad that Obama won. I was elated. I teared up during his speech. It was moving, and hopeful and exactly what I think the entire nation needed to hear. I am so looking forward to this amazing person who will be leading our nation into the future.

All that said, I’m somewhat disheartened by the reaction that I’m seeing online. Republicans saying DELUSIONAL things like “Obama is a Muslim! He can’t be Christian! He didn’t thank GOD in his speech!” Then Democrats saying “You are prejudice because you didn’t vote for Obama!”

Republicans attacking republicans for not being pissed off enough and Democrats attacking Democrats for saying that John McCain gave an amazing concession speech.

AND OH MY FUCKING GOD PEOPLE CHILL THE FUCK OUT!

What happened yesterday was AMAZING. People from BOTH sides turned out in record numbers. You fought for what you believed in, you took the time to make your voice heard, you stood in line, you made a difference! Even if your guy didn’t win, even if you voted for the opposite side as me, I’m SO PROUD of every single person that went out and voted. I’m thankful for every single person that understood the importance of this election. I’m so proud that we ALL, TOGETHER, made history yesterday.

Please, I beg you, let this be a time to heal. Lets allow ourselves to band together and use the passion we felt yesterday to work together and make the changes we all know need to be made. WE will ALL play a major part in how the next four years play out and right now, today, this very second, you can decide what kind of future you want it to be.

AND!

I promise, this is the last of my political blog posts for awhile. I want to post some about Prop 8 but I think I made it clear Monday exactly what my feelings are and, like I said above, right now I need to look forward and have faith that we will work together as a state to figure this out.

SO HAPPY BLOGGING TOMORROW! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!

And I might possibly do a Me Today video because I feel like shakin’ things up a bit. Have a topic you want me to talk about or a question you want me to answer? Leave a comment or use the form on the contact page to send me an email and you’ll get the answer LIVE AND IN VIDEO.

This is what I’ll be glued to pretty much non stop till the election is called. If you live in a western state YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO VOTE! PLEASE GO VOTE! FOR WHOEVER YOU WANT! JUST, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL PIE, GO VOTE!

We will resume with our regular, yet very irregular, posting tomorrow.

*deep cleansing breath*

The following is a transcript of a google chat Ben and I had this morning. Bimmerforums is a HUGE BMW community visited by thousands of people day.

9:18 AM Benjamin: there are fucking prop8 ads on bimmerforums!
9:19 AM me: For YES?
Benjamin: They’re flash, so can’t link ’em, buf if you sign in, you can probably see ’em
yes
me: Yes on 8?
WTF?!
9:20 AM WOW, I can’t believe that people are not raising hell.
9:23 AM Benjamin: you should logon, and look at the footer graphics
9:24 AM what really gets me going…
is that most of their footer graphics are tiny
like 120×60
and the prop8 images are huge
like 500×100
even taller?
strange
9:27 AM me: I can’t believe there isn’t a thread started abuot that.
9:28 AM Or that a forum would actually support for OR against such a heavily debated topic.
They should stay neutral.
Always.

Having worked for or owned forums in the past I know that as an admin (and this is ESPECIALLY true of you have advertisers, of which Bimmerforums has MANY) that you have to stay neutral in debates as heated as Prop 8. For OR against. Period. And since BF has a pretty ‘healthy’ debate forum I was surprised not to see a thread started about the ad but I was busy and didn’t have a lot of time to research so figured I’d put it off till later. Then as I was browsing my google reader feeds I came across a TechCrunch article talking about the mass spam of Yes on 8 all across the internet.

11:41 AM me: That’s a google adsense ad on Bimmerforums.
11:42 AM They didn’t put it there, Google did, but STILL. They have the ability to remove that BS
12:47 PM Benjamin: on the footer?
these are static ads
12:48 PM me: the bottom ones are. The prop 8 one is a google ad
Generaged by an ad script
Benjamin: it doesn’t change
me: I know that.
Benjamin: does that mean that google supports yes on 8?
me: Because right now, Prop 8 is paying them a butt ton of money to have it there
12:49 PM No, it means that google is giving the ad more play because they gave google more money
12:50 PM Saw this article: link
Then checked bimmerforums code and that ad is being generated by the google javascript ad software.
12:51 PM Look at my site right now!
YES ON 8! from the google ad!
@(#%(@&&(@$&(@#$@
That’s the end of google ads on my site forever.
12:52 PM Benjamin: so,…. is it google?
me: yeah, that’s what I was saying
12:56 PM I thought google ads were supposed to be relevent to what was ON THE SITE.
It was Yes on 8 on sylaa.net too and that has NEVER have a SINGLE political post. eVER
12:57 PM Fuck google.

I immediately pulled google ads off all three of the sites I was currently running them on. And the thing is, I never actually thought I’d make any money off those ads. Who ACTUALLY clicks google ads anymore anyway? I had them as more of a wink and a nod to google. I use a lot of their software. Search, gmail, Google Reader, Goolge chat, Google calendar, Google maps, Google Analytics, Google Docs to share documents with Ben… Holy shit I just realized that I’m Google’s BITCH!

Ummm, where was I?

So as kind of a show of support, I had the google ads there. Like, HEY LOOK! I like Google enough to allow them to SPAM all of you! But not anymore. When I changed my facebook status in protest Kris pointed out:

Prop 8 is about equality. Google accepted the Yes on 8 ads indiscriminately. Sergey Brin & Larry Page have donated $140,000 to the No on 8 campaign.

I kind of glossed over the “Prop 8 is about equality” because; NO! And I do understand that Google will say they were acting without prejudice to EITHER side when they agreed to allow the ad, but the last statement is what got me. My answer was:

And Eric Schmidt publicly stated he’s against prop 8, I get it. But *I*, as a site owner, don’t have to be equal. Also, I’ve never, in all my geekly web scouring, been shown the SAME ad on EVERY SINGLE site I go to with adsense enabled. EVER. It’s great they’ve donated all that money to No on 8… Wonder how much google MADE by spamming the ad all over the internet?

I’d be really interested in knowing just how much Google made off an ad that was on EVERY SINGLE SITE I VISITED WITH ADSENSE ENABLED. I have a feeling it’s somewhere North of $140,000 which I understand is money to the COMPANY, not the PEOPLE, but still! To me, the fact that you allowed yourself to PROFIT from the Yes campaign while being so AGAINST it is weak. WEAK. Stand up and take a stance! MAKE a difference! If you believe something so strongly that you are willing to shell out $140,000 towards the campaign, go the extra mile and actually BE A PART OF THE CHANGE. Don’t PROFIT from the opposing view!

I know it’s very easy for me to sit here on my glass pedestal (and isn’t it pretty?!) but after watching exhausting coverage of this election year, donating my money, sporting the t-shirts, blogging my views, I’d just like to see SOMEBODY stand up and make a REALLY bold move.

In conclusion: VOTE TOMORROW IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY! Vote for whoever you think is the best candidate for YOU and the way YOU believe gay marriage should go (if that applies to your state), JUST MAKE SURE YOU VOTE! PLEASE!

I’ve out a LOT of effort into being as lazy as possible this weekend. It was rainy and overcast and cloudy the couch was REALLY comfy and warm and inviting. Therefore rather than type up that dream I will leave you with pictures of the cat cuteness.

This picture says: “Sleep with one eye open.”

This one says: “Actually, take this, this is my good side.”

We’ve recently had to kick the cats out of the bedroom at night because they (and by they I mean Hans because KC is far to fat and lazy) have been jumping onto Ben’s dresser and scratching it. Hans likes to sit there by the window and lord over the back yard from high on his Perch of Greatness.

They both have ended up sleeping with Cassidy at night which she thinks is great! But about 4:45AM EVERY SINGLE DAY, they start to get a little antsy and pace the floor in front of our door yelling GET UP AND LET ME OUTSIDE, JERKS! By about 5:00AM Hans is doing backflips against the door in protest and when Ben opens it he’s like OMG I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD LET ME OUTSIDE HURRY I HAVE THINGS TO DO AND PLACES TO PEE AND WATER TO DRINK AND WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU DO LONG HURRY HURRY HURRY THIS WAY I’LL SHOW YOU THIS DOOR OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT HURRY HURRY!

And KC is like, thank GOD you got up to let that spaz out. Now, stop what you’re doing this instant and shower me with the love I deserve for being this amazingly cute.

I have to admit that sometimes it’s the part of the morning I look forward to the most and I get a little grin at how cute and different that cats can be. On Saturdays though, on Saturdays I start to wonder what exactly is involved in the making of cat stew…