Apparently, I'm a tone-ist

I like to think that I'm not a racist, a sexist, or any other kind of -ist.

However, it has come to light recently, thanks to my neighbors, that I am in fact, regrettably, a tone-ist.

I just can't listen to chicks talking in a certain tone of voice.
It really, physically, palpably, makes me stop and cringe.

So is the case with someone next door.
Don't know if it's the resident or a friend, but I hear her outside our door and I stop dead in my tracks and cringe.

Such is also the case with my roommate's girlfriend.
I hate to say/type that since I actually like her as a person and she makes him happy. In that regard, I love her since, well, duh, I love my roommate and want him to be happy.

However, there is something about that certain tonality. Don't know if it's just her speech or her laugh. Actually, check that, I do very definitely cringe every time she laughs.

There's just something about it.
I can't name or label it.
Just drives me nuts.

I turn up the volume on my TV when she's around.
Bow out gracefully when invited to hang out (all three times that that's happened).
Just can't deal with it.

Thankfully, I still have the safety net of the cat, which insures that I still have Dave as a roommate (she's allergic and HATES the cat), so there's that.

My neurologist kicks your neurologist's ass!

I get some serious chronic pain issues from time to time, in addition to frequent migraines.
This is all related to brain problems, as attested to by my neurologist.

Anyway, some time last year when I was in for my quarterly brain check-up, I was simultaneously having an obscene migraine.
My doc was very sympathetic, he's actually a really cool guy.
But the bottom line is, we got through the check-up quickly and he sent me on my way with a prescription for Vicodin. Kick. Ass.

I don't tend to take pain meds for recreational purposes. Honest. Still don't.
With pain and all that crappy stuff, I went through my script in about three months.

So, more pain ensued and the other day I emailed him and asked him to call in a new prescription for me.

Now, here's the best part.
Finally picked it up today, 30 pills, sufficient to last quite some time.
Then I looked at the bottle, and for the first time ever, there was authorization for refills.
Two.

Such a relief.

You know the saying "Why do I bang my head against a wall? Because it feels so good when I stop."
Well, I feel almost human today.
A nice change from cringing with every movement.

Stupid brain.

An ill-conceived plan

Woke up this morning a little hungover. Actually went out last night for fun, a rarity these days.
Well, today I was destined to pay for it.

However, it was a beautiful day and I felt the need to be somewhat productive, dammit.

Had my coffee, prepped my marinade and chicken for tonight's cooking, did my taxes and sat on the couch to watch tv.

Windows open. Birds chirping. Such a stinking beautiful day.
Ok, gotta do something. Can't be a slug on a day like this.

Decided to go for a walk.
Dumbass Jess.

It's 75 degrees out and sunny so, for those of you who know my condition and how it's affected by heat, you know it felt like 95-100 degrees out. But still I marched.

Decided to walk to the gym.
Forty-five minutes later, there I was.
Exhausted.
Didn't think to bring my train pass with me if I felt the need to have help getting back home.
Dumbass Jess.

Went inside, washed my face, drank some water and headed back out.
By this time, it feels like all the blood in my body is in my hands only.
They're burning, can't even bend my fingers. Not pleasant.

But I'm back, almost approaching room temperature, and headed back to the couch.

At least I got something done today.

That's the night that the lights went out in Lakeview...

Good basketball game.
Saluki's are winning, and then.....

The power went out.
The whole grid.

Just came back on, not bad, actually, only took about forty-five minutes. Let's hope they're that speedy come air-conditioning season.

And oh yeah, Saluki's lost. By three.
Poot.

Ah well.

A Good Day, all around

The weather was perfect. Beautiful. Upper fifties, but sunny so it felt like seventy.

Got my ass in gear and actually got a little excercise - forty minutes walking at a decent clip to and from the Whole Foods Market in my relative neighborhood. And managed to not buy anything unhealthy while there, just some nice veggies, thank you very much.

Just really couldn't get over how lovely it was outside. Just intermittent, whispy clouds drifting by with a nice breeze. Just, really, perfect.

Then I come home to find out that, thank goodness, Papelbon will be our closer after all, rather than getting a starting rotation spot. Such a relief, given the, well, lack of alternatives. Although I have to admit I'm not much enthused by Tavarez being anywhere in the lineup, as a starter, middle relief or closer. That guy only surprises me when he pitches well. But I don't want to ruin this perfect day with talk of negativity.

Not much longer to wait for the start of the regular season. Getting downright giddy!

So, tonight, it's more basketball.
Go Saluki's!

Tee hee!

Ok, this is a little twisted, but amusing as all get out.

Check it.

Not far now...

Went against my better judgement last night and went out.
Generally, I make it a rule not to go out on St. Patrick's Day weekend, seeing as how it's pretty much an amateur night out for binge drinkers.
However, Dave arrived home from a bar and informed me that he, his girlfriend and another friend were going out karaoking.
Well, how could I say no? It had been a while since I'd stretched my vocal muscles.

So off we went.
It was fun, but a little draining.

I did my standards - "Love is a Battlefield," "Son of a Preacher Man," and "Brass in Pocket."
And, of course, Dave and I did our duo bit for "Draggin' the Line." Always a good one.

It had been awhile since I'd gone out for a late night and around 1:30 I had been wanting to go home for an hour, but wanted to wait to split the cab fare.
Went up to Dave - "Are you almost ready to go?"
He was standing with his girlfriend, looked at a watch, looked at his beer, and shook his head.

'Nuff said. I was off.

I ended up walking home. Not much cash on hand.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem. It's not much more than a mile from the bar back to the apartment.
Of course, I was wearing unsensible shoes.
I mean really, what's a 5' 11" girl to do when going out but to wear boots that make her 6' 1"?
That combined with a little more of a chill in the air made it a long clomp home.
But I'm back, awaked, tired, a little hungover. But still glad I went out.

The odd origins of loyalty

So, granted, I don't give a rip about college sports.
College, for me, was a place for figuring out who the hell you are without the stigma of sports or fraternities/sororities, etc.
Figures that I went to a college without a Greek system, and with one of the longest losing streaks ever in a football team.
(Although our women's soccer team turned out to be pretty spiffy - too bad I don't give a rat's ass about soccer.) But I digress.

I generally don't watch basketball, especially since the Celtics stopped being any good, oh, 18 years ago or so.
However, I do, intermittently get into NCAA basketball.
For absolutely no good reason.
Of course I have my brackets, but there's no money involved, simply a reason for me to stay remotely interested in the upcoming games.

Which is where I discover the aforementioned odd origins of loyalty.

I picked Notre Dame to make it to the Elite Eight, because of Charlie Weis and his football team.
So much for that, they lost.

I picked Illinois to make it to the second round, but no further, because, well, where do I live now?

I picked BC to make it a few rounds because, well, I used to live outside of Boston. Good enough for me. Go Eagles!

But, quite possibly the most irrational choice for random loyalty was my decision to take Southern Illinois to the Final Four. Not to win, mind you, but still.
I currently play on a pool team on Tuesday nights. We play out of a bar called Lincoln Station.
This is our first season out of there.
Prior to this season, we played at a bar called Saluki's.
That's right. The Southern Illinois Salukis would be the team I have advancing to the Final Four.

Meh, whatcha gonna do?
Like I said, there's no money involved and, so far so almost good.
We'll see.

Hey, if nothing else, it's a fine diversion for the last umpteen days until opening day, right?
Right.

Happy Pi Day!

Mmmmmmmmmm.....Pi.

Precious

Found this pic over at My Baseball Bias, a nifty AL East blog and thought I'd share.

Now, as long as they aren't this nice to each other come the regulare season, we should be alright.
And oh yeah, a belated Woo Hoo! for the Sox beating the Yankees in the meaningless Spring Training game last night. Couldn't watch it here, but was happy to see the final.

The Target Conspiracy

About a year ago, I bought one of those cheap, crane-neck, halogen bedside clip on lamps from Target.
Cheap, utilitarian, all good.
About a month ago, the bulb blew.
No problem, right?

Not so much. Not Jewel, not CVS, it seemed no one carried the replacement bulb. Including Target.
Surely they wanted me to simply buy another lamp instead.
Managed to find a lower wattage equivalent, but still, not the right bulb.
I dunno, made me a little snarky.

In general, I don't like running errands on the weekend as everyone else does and the stores are crowded.
However, it is only during the weekends that I can go out and still find a reasonable parking spot to walk home from upon my return.

Pit-stopped at Trader Joe's for my refueling of wine, yogurt, and berries for said yogurt.
An interesting place, TJ's. I love it, really, but on the weekends it seems to be populated not by the frugal shopper, but by those who frequent the CB2 next door and other higher end type shopping places.
As stated by the wife in an elderly couple in line behind me not too long ago, "The Yuppies are busy today."
Seemed about right.
I used to be one, you know, pre unemployment.
But now I seem to be a little more sensitive to them, with their Gapkids in tow, taking up space, taking far too long to deliberate the merits of Shrimp stir-fry vs. shrimp stir-fry with pasta and shrimp stir-fry with rice. But maybe it's just me.
Thankfully, I'm well aware of my TJ's staples and their locations and managed to get out of there without too much delay.
However, I did get called ma'am and didn't get carded, so felt a little deflated nonetheless.

In the end though, early daylight savings should prove good for my season effective disorder, and, of course, 58 degree weather with sunshine didn't hurt.
Think I might actually try going to the gym tomorrow. maybe my legs'll start working for me again.

All in all, in better spirits than I was last week.
Opening day is approaching, the Pats are making some pretty stellar off-season acquisitions.
I find myself cautiously optimistic again, even hopeful, if you can believe it.

Passing fears

So, yesterday scared the crap out of me.
I woke up at 10AM, when I had set my tv to turn itself on so I could watch the last half hour of George Stefanopolous.
Things got weird, and pretty damn frightening.

I've experienced sleep paralysis before, when your mind wakes up but your body doesn't and you can't move, even though you're aware and want to.
Happens more often than I'd like, but I've become kind of used to it. It usually passes after a few minutes, fifteen max.

I was unable to move or get out of bed until 2PM.

I just lay there, freaked out.
Tried to talk, nothing. Turns out my roommate wasn't home anyway, so that didn't matter.
But for a few, terrifying hours, I really felt like I was circling the drain.
Not a pleasant experience, although by 1:30 or so, I'd kind of made some kind of peace with everything.
I wouldn't say I was ready, but I was more ok than not.

Turned out, that proved unnecessary, since, you know, I'm here and typing and all.

A Lunar Connection to the Past

I was standing at my kitchen window, looking at the moon.
Missed the eclipse but, for lack of living in Europe, Asia or Australia, that was likely to happen.

I've had a long-standing relationship with the moon, one that was made clear to me when I was a child.
I remember mornings when I would whine to my mother about an unusually rough night of sleep.
"Well," she would say, "that's to be expected. It was a full moon last night."

Apparently, my grandmother, my father's mother, had similar issues with the waxing and waning of the moon.
This somehow made sense to me. Felt special.
Even before, I recalled driving home in my parents' car. Looking out the window, watching the moon follow us home.
Of course, at the time, I wasn't well versed at all about how astronomical guideposts tended to appear fixed in the sky during short periods of time. Didn't matter. I felt as though I was connected to that celestial body.
And now, with this new information, I was reconnected with my grandmother.
She died when I was in the fourth grade, but I still feel connected to her.

I was her favorite, and, let's be honest, it feels wonderful to be on the receiving end of that kind of affection.
She had always had some issues with my mother (go figure, being the mother-in-law) and had, too, trouble with my older brother. But I was the baby, and was so encompassed by her love that I always knew there was a haven of affection in her bedroom.
I would go there, talk to her, weed through her drawers, playing with scarves and costume jewelry.

She was also the first to have me look at the world differently.
I was in her bedroom, sitting with her, the day after a heavy snow.
She pulled up the curtains and shut off the lights.
And suddenly, magically, I was faced with this world I'd never seen.
A world covered in snow that, even though it was night, glowed on the landscape.
I was entranced, looking at the too familiar trees and shrubs now defined only by the snow gently covering them.

I wish I could know her now, now as a fully developed person, with ideas and thoughts, not just the needs of an eight year old.

She was a chemist. Almost unheard of for an eastern European woman in the mid 1900's. A woman who, along with her sisters, helped her family, and, of course, my father, survive the holocaust of World War II, losing her husband and countless others in the process. Changing her name to one that sounded less Jewish to enable said survival. An extraordinary woman.

I wish I could talk to her now, convey to her just how remarkable she was and still is in my memories.

So, on nights like tonight, I look into the sky, see the moon, and think of her.

A Propos of nothing

I just caught myself thinking - go figure.
I was thinking about when I was living in or, more regularly visiting Massachusetts.
When I was there, chance are, I would take the T into Harvard Square where there was, invitably, a panhandler en route to wherever it was I might have been going to.

It just struck me, recently, belatedly, how rough it must be for those guys in the days of the debit card.
I vividly remember getting to Harvard Square, with the remnants of my round-trip T token residuals, happy to give the remaining 15 cents to the bum en route to the "insert high school hippy crystal sales shop here" store.

I can only imagine how rough it is now for the pan-handler.
Truth be told, I almost never carry cash. At all.

A few weeks ago, the Street Wise, sanctioned panhandler, hit me up on my way into the CVS near my apartment. I responded, honestly, I don't have any cash on me.
She was fine with that but said, "Well, if you pick up a can of cat food, that'd be outstanding."

I was floored. This was, honestly, the first time someone had hit me up for money and was perfectly ok with not getting it, and, more specifically, ok with getting something that was relatively worthless come trade-time.

So, even though I'm unemployed, I bought a can of 9 Lives and gave it to her on my way out.
She was unbelievable grateful. Gave me two months worth of the Street Wise periodical even though the sum total of my purchase given to her was less than one dollar.

Definitely gave me food for thought.

Along similar lines: My meals, over the last month, have been obscenely boring (chicken with asparagus, or stir - fry) and ridiculously without change.

Only this time, I am more that willing to see how grateful I should be for this regularity, albeit boring, presentation of sustinance.